Vir Das is back with his fifth Netflix special — Vir Das: Fool Volume — today. The comedian-actor (and now director) spoke to The Telegraph from the US about what makes it different from his previous work, his directorial debut, and his coming-soon memoir.

Are you back on your global tour?

No. This year is a little bit more chilled out. This is a ‘release year’, not a ‘touring year’. I spent the last two years touring and putting this Netflix special (Fool Volume) together. I shot a bunch of acting projects and now I am writing and doing post-production.

Has being on the go constantly — despite using that time to direct a film and write a memoir — given you time to introspect?

I wrote a memoir... I am done with introspection! (Laughs) There is nothing worse than writing a memoir if you aren’t an introspective kind of person. It makes you realise how unspectacular your life has been — or how spectacular, depending on how much of an ego you have — but in my case, I sat back and said what a complete idiot I have been for a very long time, which is what my memoir is about!

Fool Volume is your fifth Netflix Special. Has it become an annual pilgrimage of sorts?

They are very kind and it is nice to have a partner who you can take your best creative thoughts to. Each of the Specials says something different. I don’t do a Special if I don’t have a strong story to tell.

I lost my voice just before this Special and it changed and became a show about silence. The Special is about silence and the concept of sharing happiness — if you have happiness, do you share it or be silent about it?

And yet you have named it Fool Volume...

Yes, because it is a sillier show. Landing (which won Vir his International Emmy) was a good show but it was a little sad. With this new Special, I wanted to have some fun. We sold out a massive stadium in Mumbai but six weeks before the show, I woke up without a voice. I spent those weeks in silence with my intrusive thoughts and when I finally got my voice back, I wanted to have some fun and just be a fool! That is what this show is about. It speaks about the volume at which a fool operates... it is a silly show.

Losing one’s voice is agonising, especially for a comedian whose voice is his currency...

It was utter helplessness. To not be able to communicate, to not have breath to even ask for a cup of tea was agonising. Coming back to the art form with only 20 per cent of my breath capacity made me feel like a footballer with broken legs or a Formula One driver with no vision. I was very desperate, so I tried everything from ghar pe puja to a vocal doctor to Adele’s speech therapist to homeopathy to chakra healers to myofascial energy healers... just so that I could perform for 12,000 people. Maybe it was the combination of all of them that got me back on stage.

Fool Volume looks different from your other shows in tone and treatment...

I wanted to go against the tropes of a stand-up comedy special. The first rule of stand-up is that if the audience is in darkness, it will laugh louder. But I wanted to make this Special an ode to the audience. I wanted to see all the 12,000 faces in the stadium in Mumbai, I wanted to see everyone in the church in London and all the people in the comedy cellar in New York. These are the places we shot the Special at.

When we laugh, we sound exactly the same... laughter is a universal language. In this Special, I want the viewer sitting at home to see people of different races, religions, ages and skin colour laughing. The aim of the visual perspective of the show is to make you feel like you are in the middle of the live show.

Also, there was no set. I performed with one central ghost light in my hand with which I could see the whole audience. There are three very different soundscapes — from 12,000 people to 2,000 people to 150 people... three very different rooms across three continents. But instead of making them all sound the same, we have allowed the contrast to remain. The Special is shot at every camera angle and it is from the point of view of the audience. It doesn’t have the typical things like dolly shots or the use of a jimmy jib. I put a camera where an audience member would sit and the idea is to make you feel you are with me in the show.

The theory behind the ghost light is interesting. When I lost my voice, the first thing everybody told me was: ‘You have been sharing too much good news.’ The mythology of a ghost light is that it is supposed to ward off evil spirits. The light that you will see in Fool Volume has been used for hundreds of years in a theatre. It is that one light that is left on at night and it is supposed to ward off evil spirits in the theatre, which is why it is called a ghost light. That is why it is the central visual and also the prop in the show.

Despite your experience and expertise, wasn’t it intimidating to see everyone in the audience and their reactions? What if someone is making a face at a joke or sulking in a corner?

This Special puts the audience on a pedestal, so that was par for the course. But such things could potentially be tough to edit. Sometimes, a certain camera angle could really work for me, but not for the gentleman picking his nose eight rows behind me. So I had to edit according to that gentleman and not according to me. The show wants to say it is more about the voice of the audience than mine.

Coming to your question, yes it was terrifying. Also, I didn’t get a lot of time to rehearse... my voice came back only five days before the show. On stage, I was terrified... it took quite a few minutes to calm my heart rate because it was also my first big stadium (show) in Mumbai. It was very intimidating. And then to have no set, no swag, no fog machine, no nice lighting... was scary. It looked like Dante’s Inferno with one guy in the middle.

What did you discover about yourself as a comedian?

I realised what stand-up comedy really is — that the comedian just says words randomly and the audience tells the truth. It also made me realise what the power of their voice is. For the longest time, as a comedian, you are on stage going: ‘Main aur mere lavz.’ You put yourself on a pedestal and when one day you lose your voice, it is a humbling experience. Which makes you realise that the more powerful voice in a comedy show is not your voice, it is the audience.

How does one do a set on a topic like ‘nazar’ and make it resonate with international audiences?

It depends on how you explain it. I used ‘Dharia mud ki chudail’ in For India and explained a cuss word in Landing. I do think Indian comedy is global at this point, and the nice thing is that when you explain something to a foreigner that they haven’t heard before, they appreciate it. What is the point of saying the five things that they already know about India that they can anyway hear from some local comedian? I have come all this way, I have stood in the embassy immigration line for hours... kuch naya toh bol ke jaana padega!

Does the world look differently at an International Emmy winner?

I don’t know. The Emmy is in a cupboard, wrapped in thermocol and has a cloth covering it... it is literally next to my woollen pants and thermal underwear.

Winning it was definitely a joyful moment, more for the people who stuck with me. But if I were to walk on a stand-up stage with an International Emmy, it would make my life more difficult as a comedian.

You have just wrapped up your directorial debut Happy Patel. What has that experience been like?

I have realised what a small part of a movie an actor is. They think they are the main part, but you are just 10 per cent of a movie, bro. There is so much more happening around you.

I had a wonderful experience. I fell in love with directing like I fell in love with stand-up when I first did it. I had a wonderful co-director in Kavi Shastri... we have been creative partners for years. Aamir (Khan) is a dream producer. The kind of creative freedom and platform he gives you is amazing. I star in it as well (Happy Patel is the comeback film of Vir’s Delhi Belly co-star Imran Khan) and it was stressful and physically tasking. It is an action comedy and there are seven big action set pieces in it.

Acting involves a lot of waiting but in stand-up comedy, your mind is working 100 per cent of the time. On a film set, the only person whose mind is working 100 per cent of the time is the director. In that sense, it is similar to being a comedian.

What made you want to write a memoir at this stage of your life and career?

I still don’t know if it was a good idea. Initially, I said ‘no’, but then I said I would do it if they let me write a memoir (The Outsider: A Memoir for Misfits, out in November) about failure and about being lost. That is pretty much the tone of the book... it is self-deprecating, it is about stumbling through life and looking for belonging and feeling like an outsider. It doesn’t chronicle success, it chronicles failure. It is a pretty relatable read because it doesn’t talk about what I have achieved... I say: ‘This is what I did, here is how much of an idiot I was, these are the foolish things I said and here is how it cost me.’