Growing up, Kushi Venkatesh knew exactly what she wanted to be – a tennis pro.
The young Adelaide comedian even had a scholarship lined up at a US college.
But a series of shoulder dislocations and subluxations meant that she had to make the heartbreaking decision to give up on her Grand Slam dreams and find a new passion.
It’s fair to say that standup comedy wasn’t high on her "new passion" list, but a particularly funny campaign speech while running for class captain alerted Kushi’s teachers to her hidden talent for making people laugh.
"I was actually only going for school captain because I thought it would look good on my US college application," Kushi laughs.
"And I knew that if I wanted to stand out, I needed to do something different, because every speech is the same – it’s just people promising the same thing.
"So I just went up there, made no promises at all and just basically made jokes for two minutes."
Kushi’s classmates thought it was hilarious – and good enough to vote her class captain – and her drama teacher enrolled her in Class Clowns, a national competition to find Australia’s funniest high school students.
She won the state finals, got to perform to a huge crowd at the grand final in Melbourne, and can now legitimately call herself the funniest teenager in South Australia.
Which is a great title to have on the resume when she lines up alongside some seriously funny folk for OzAsia Festival’s The Special Comedy Comedy Special: Greatest Debate at Her Majesty’s Theatre on November 8.
A war of words between some of our best comedians of Asian heritage – including Lawrence Leung, Alex Lee and Jason Chong – this year’s topic will be "the new Australian dream is never moving out".
The child of Indian-Australian parents, Kushi says there’s no shortage of material to draw on from her own home life to inform her debate (although she won’t say if she agrees or disagrees with the statement because she doesn’t want to give her opposition any potential ammunition).
As a young comedian who was gigging before she was old enough to go to pubs and clubs, Kushi had to bring her mum along as a chaperone.
She says this is possibly the main reason she’s developed an observational style of comedy with no swearing.
"My parents were always watching, and I didn’t want to be pulled off stage," Kushi laughs.
"But also, a lot of the comedians I look up to are very clean comedians, and just great storytellers. I think there’s a real skill to doing that."
And for younger readers who think they might recognise Kushi, that’s probably because she’s also a reporter on the long-running ABC program BTN, or Behind the News.
"I started there straight out of high school, so it’s been about a year-and-a-half now," she says.
"It’s been so much fun, and I’ve learned so much."
Tickets to The Special Comedy Comedy Special: Greatest Debate (external site) (external site) are now on sale.
