The 28-year-old stand-up comedian from Mumbai, Urooj Ashfaq is currently dominating headlines after being coveted at the Edinburgh Comic Awards, one of the most prestigious accolades in the comedy industry, announced that Urooj Ashfaq won the Best Newcomer Award for her act, Oh No! Not only was this an achievement in her career but a milestone for the country. She is the first from India to win the prize in its 40-year history, and also the first of South Asian descent to win since 1997.
Through the act, she reflected on cultural differences, her experiences in treatment, and her parents’ divorce wrapped in an intensely engaging presentation which was produced by Soho Theatre in collaboration with OML. Speaking about the prestigious award, she told the Indian Express, “The festival is as old as independent India and has 3,500 shows in different genres. I had not gone to win an award; I was just happy to perform.” Here is how the female comedian made her journey in the industry.
Let’s find out more about her:
Early Life
Urooj Ashfaq was born in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on August 24, 1995. She moved to Mumbai at the age of 12. She attended Ryan International School in Mumbai and went on to complete her degree in psychology at Jai Hind College in Mumbai. In 2017, she began her career in comedy with the TLC show Queens of Comedy, which is lauded as India’s first-ever female stand-up comedy show.
Road to Fame
After her initial success, Urooj Ashfaq went on to work on comedy shows like AIB: Honest Engineering Campus Placements in 2017, which was eventually adapted into a TV miniseries. Urooj Ashfaq has also worked as a comedic writer on a number of series, including Die Trying (2018) and Son of Abish (2017).
Urooj appeared in an AIB video, If Apps Were People, in 2017 where she was cast as Supriya, a girl who was attempting to escape distractions created by the apps on her phone. Later, she portrayed Tara in Pushpavalli, a popular web comedy-drama series streaming on the Amazon Prime platform. She also was part of the Comedy Premier League in 2021.
Urooj was the FemaPalooza winner in April 2017 in Mumbai and was one of the top three competitors on TLC’s ‘Queens of Comedy’ show. The comedian has over 2 lakh subscribers on YouTube, and she has toured across the country to perform her comedy gigs.
Controversy
Urooj Ashfaq took part in the Anti-CAA march in Mumbai’s iconic August Kranti Maidan, where there was a big protest against the Citizenship Act. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act has been severely attacked for allegedly discriminating against Muslims on the basis of religion. Reportedly, Urooj’s supporters and followers chastised her for being illiterate and failing to comprehend the amendment.
On March 19, 2018, Urooj Ashfaq tweeted that beef should be cooked in a Yagnya in Madhya Pradesh. Her tweet was widely condemned for being insulting to Hinduism. The comedian refused to apologise for it.
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