Sami Shah began his comedy career in Pakistan, where he poked fun at politicians and religious leaders on a television satire show. Not everyone loved the jokes – so when the death threats became a little too frequent, Shah immigrated to Australia.
Since settling in Melbourne, Shah has hosted breakfast radio, toured standup comedy and authored a number of books. He made lemonade out of lemons by turning his marriage breakdown into material for a 2021 comedy festival show – then found love again when he met Kylie Moore-Gilbert, the academic jailed for 804 days in an Iranian prison, on a dating app. Shah now works as a university lecturer but still makes time for comedy, next taking the stage at the OzAsia festival in November.
When he moved to Australia, Shah left behind a collection of beloved books and comics. Here, he tells us about that box of sacred texts, as well as sharing the story of two other important personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
My box of watches. Yes, I have a box of watches. I’m that sort of middle-aged man.
They aren’t even particularly expensive watches. I don’t have Patek Philippe or (God forbid) Rolex – although that’s more due to matters of taste and dignity than anything else – ever met a Rolex owner? They’re only slightly less punchable than a BMW driver. But there is the Raymond Weil my father bought when I was born and the Longines he bought when he got promoted. There are others too: a vintage Omega I bought when I became a university lecturer and a Seiko I celebrated the sale of my last major published work with.
They mean the world to me and I love that even now, years later (one is over 80 years old), I hand wind them and they start counting down the seconds so efficiently. None of my watches tell me how many steps I’ve walked today or if I slept well last night, because I can imagine nothing more useless than that information. They adorn my wrist and remind me of my connection to times past.
My most useful object
My bench scraper, which glides across the kitchen counter and makes all my tasks easier and cleaner.
It is small and sharp-edged but still large enough to lift a whole pile of diced onions and carrots across to the pot, or peel off the gummy wet flour scraps. With my scraper, I’ve evenly sliced through dough, scraped burnt bits off baking pans and carried diced and sliced things from one part of the kitchen to the other without dropping any on the floor.
You think that all sounds ridiculous because you don’t have one. When you get one, you’ll thank me.
The item I most regret losing
A collection of books and comics. Not the ones I have here, built over 12 years of migrant transience. Rather the giant collection built over the first 35 years of my life that’s sitting in boxes in my parents’ house in Karachi.
In there are the comics I traced and obsessed over as a teenager, the signed copies of my favourite authors’ books I tracked down and bought as an adult. There are the Stephen King novels I bought during my summers of boredom at my grandparents’ house, the reading of which is why I’m a writer today, and the many books and graphic novels found in secondhand shops, garage sales and (yes I know) stolen from libraries when I couldn’t find them anywhere else.
I’ve been plotting to bring them here since I moved across but it would cost several thousand dollars and such an expense just isn’t justifiable. But dammit I do miss them and one day I’ll be reunited. So they aren’t even fully lost, I suppose, just missed.
Sami Shah is the curator of OzAsia festival’s Weekend of Words, which runs from 8 to 10 November in Adelaide
This story was amended on Wednesday 16 October to correctly show Sami Shah will appear on stage as part of the OzAsia festival in November.
