Romesh Ranganathan has talked about being bullied, his early gigs and thinking about quitting comedy. He was talking on episode two of the podcast  This Is Not What I Asked For, hosted by celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Andrew (pictured with Romesh)

Ranganathan talked about constantly crying in the toilet at his first job he hated:

"I was working in this office, I was a cost analyst for an airline caterer so basically what that meant was like Air New Zealand would like turn up to this presentation and the chefs that work for our company would go,  you can have this on economy, you can have this on business, you can have this on first, and they go can we have an extra olive on blah, blah, blah, can we have like lasagne on this. And I would tell them how much it would cost to like kit out the fleet with that. Then I would work out the pricing for that. So anyway, that was the job I was doing and it paid alright. But I just hated it. And I remember like, I start to think to think to myself,  shit man, this is my first permanent job, is this my life.

And so one day, I was sat just working on some account, and I was so like, spun out by how boring I was finding it and how much I was hating it that I just thought I'm going go to the toilet just for a break. I don't even know if I need to go. I just need to be away from this desk for a little bit. So I walked up to the toilet, I sat down and then I started crying in the toilet, like just crying at where I was…I just thought fucking hell, is this what I do to retirement. I was like crying in the toilet. And then I came downstairs, and I sat on my desk, I felt amazing like I pressed the reset button and then for the next few months that I worked for that company, every two weeks, I'd go for a toilet cry. Every now and again, i would go, getting a bit much for you, time for a little toilet sob and then I'll pop up to the toilet and have a cry. I mean, god forbid anyone came in and then I realised you can't live your life like that.

Romesh Ranganathan talks about almost quitting comedy:

I've had my low self esteem arguments about it as I was provided for my family when I was a teacher. But what I decided was I decided that wasn't good enough for me. I want to do the thing I really want to do chasing your dream is one thing and making sacrifices to chase your dream It's fine. When you force sacrifices upon other people to chase your dream that is slightly less noble. And that is something that like I had to reconcile with. I remember once finding a fiver in my pocket, a jacket that I'd put on after ages and Lisa and I celebrated, like we won the fucking lottery. We just had no money. It was so mad.

And then like, I remember, I was on my way to Leicester for a comedy competition. And I found Lisa in the morning, I said, “I don't know how I'm going to Leicester this competition. I think I'm going to quit”. And she goes, “Just go do the competition, come home, let's have a chat about it”. And I said, “ I'm going to go back to teaching, I can't do this anymore”. And then I went to Leicester. And then I don't know if it's I thought this is going to be my last gig or I'm going to quit soon. But like the stars aligned, and I won that competition, but that in my head, it wasn't like massive money or whatever. I think a couple of grand was the prize but winning the competition was like a validation.  If I hadn't won that competition, I would have quit comedy.

Romesh Ranganathan talks about his time in school:

So many humiliating things happened to me man, I did judo at school. I was one of the two biggest kids in the judo class. And the other kid was white at the end, the judo teacher would make us fight each other in what they called the coffee and cream belt. And everyone would sit around and watch the two fattest kids in judo fight each other. It was like a treat at the end of every judo class.

And then one day I left my judo suit at school the next morning my former teacher came in and said, “Romesh, you left your Judo kit here last night”, and he held it up and there was a fucking skid mark in the trousers and he held them up in front of the entire class. This podcast should be, how did Romesh survive school. The fact that I'm alive in front of you today.  Another time I asked the girl out she thought was a prank…the idea that she would go out with me was so hilarious to her, she thought I must be asking as a joke, mad.

Available on Global Player and all available podcast platforms now.

Picture: Instagram