Sometimes he wishes he could calm down and not have so many new things going on all the time. A wish he doesn't share with his audience who get to follow him on a journey that can be both near and far – Örebro next!

When I went there as a child, and also as an adult, before I met Malin, I was terrified of most things and became ill from all the food.

David Batra is one of Sweden's most popular comedians and presenters. With an ever-packed schedule, he will be performing on theatre stages across Sweden this spring and summer, opening a restaurant in India in the new season of *Världens sämsta indier* (World's Worst Indian), and what's more, he'll be teaching us how to sleep better in the new SVT series *Sov gott* (Sleep Well). INRIKES managed to grab a chat with David Batra via Zoom.

I love season 3 of The World's Worst Indians, where you and Malin Mendel decide to start a restaurant in India. How did you come up with the idea?

– We got the idea when we were filming last season of Världens sämsta indier. Both Malin and I are very interested in cooking, and both she and I have published cookbooks, so it was quite natural for us to try starting a restaurant.

How much of what we see in the programmes is documentary, and how much is written into the script?

– It's documentary, but some things are planned meetings and interviews, so we've planned the structure. You could say there are three different parts to the programme; firstly, that we're going to succeed with the restaurant and how to do it, and hopefully, there'll be humour in that. The third part is for Malin to teach me to become a real Indian and thus, we'll teach viewers something about India. Our idea was that by using the restaurant as a base, we could go on excursions which in themselves would be interesting. For example, we needed to sort out electricity for the restaurant, and then we learned how electricity works in India, and when we needed to sort out water for the restaurant, we learned how water works in India. In that way, those sorts of things are naturally included in the programmes.

It is very interesting to follow precisely those everyday things that one doesn't see if one is a tourist in India. One thing we see a lot of in the series is that Malin wants to learn to be a bit tougher and dare to assert herself, but sometimes it looks really dangerous. Like when you, in episode one, had to learn to drive a bus in Indian left-hand traffic.

– It was really awful, actually. Just the left-hand traffic itself was scary, but then a cow appeared right in front of the bus and other scary things, says David and laughs:

– I find it fun to follow projects and entrepreneurship, and in India it’s special – trying to succeed in that environment. Just finding people, we had people at job interviews when we were recruiting a cook, for example. Another thing is; how do you market something in a country with one and a half billion inhabitants? How can you stand out? There are constant challenges that, as a viewer, you can relate to, in one way or another, even if you live in Sweden.

What is the most delicious thing you eat when you are in India?

– That's a good question. When I went there as a child and also as an adult, before I met Malin, I was terrified of most things and became ill from all the food. If I stayed in a hotel and ate hotel food, I always got sick. But with Malin, I've learned a lot; she mainly eats at cheap street food places and it's home-cooked food. Thanks to her, I've learned to dare to eat at places with high turnover, lots of people, and where the chefs stir-fry food over large gas flames, then it's quite harmless. I've eaten very well when I've been at people's homes who live in very cramped conditions and are very poor, but who still want to offer food – we've had incredible lunches and dinners at people's homes we've visited.

It must be incredibly exciting to be invited into people's homes and to have the opportunity to ask curious questions.

– Yes, that's what drives both Malin and me to make these programmes. It's wonderful to step into people's lives and homes. To occasionally feel a lovely connection with someone who has an incredibly different life to your own, to be able to feel a great sense of belonging nonetheless, and that is worth so much. When I was little, India was a very poor country far away with poor people and cows; that was the image one had. Now it's a dragon rising next to China with enormous growth, a superpower. It's exciting to get an insight into it yourself and also important for us in the West and the Western world to understand that we must relate to these countries.

David Batra 

Age: 50. 
Family His wife Anna Kinberg Batra, county governor of Stockholm County, teenage daughter, and a dog. 
Bor Nacka and in the Tessin Palace in Stockholm. 
Occupation Comedian, presenter, author. 
Background in brief: Grew up in Lund with a Swedish mother and an Indian father. Educated in business administration. Debuted as a stand-up comedian in 1994. Has appeared in several TV programmes, including Kvarteret Skatan, Morgonsoffan, Parlamentet, and also as one of the judges in the entertainment programme Talang. Last year he presented the TV series Hårt väder. In the series Världens sämsta indier, which began airing on SVT in autumn 2018, he explores India with SVT correspondent Malin Mendel with the aim of finding his origins and learning more about the country. 
Currently With the third season of "World's Worst Indians" on SVT and SVT Play. Host of "Sleep Well," a TV series about sleep problems. SVT 1 and SVT Play Thursday 20 April at 8:00 PM. Playing one of the lead roles in the show "Peter Pan Goes to Hell," tickets: www.peterpan.se

Your dad is appearing in "The World's Worst Indian". Have you worked together in other contexts too?

– I've made a podcast where he was a bit of a sidekick, but it's mainly with The world's worst Indian We've been working together. It all began when he said, ‘You wouldn't manage a day in India, and I want to challenge you’.

He must be very proud of you.

David laughs: – It's not something he expresses very often, but I think he is.

What are you doing this spring and summer?

– I’m doing theatre in spring and summer around Sweden, in a play called Peter Pan is going to hell. The story is that we're an amateur ensemble putting on Peter Pan and everything goes to hell. It's me, Pernilla Wahlgren, Per Andersson, and a bunch of others. That's what the majority of my time is taken up with this spring and summer.

If I have to drive a bus in Indian left-hand traffic, I get very nervous. In such moments, it's not just nervousness, it's sheer terror if I'm honest.

Do you get nervous when performing on stage or filming for TV and film?

– Yes, I do, but it depends on what I’m doing. If I have to drive a bus in Indian left-hand traffic, I get very nervous. In those moments, it’s not just nervousness, it’s pure terror if I’m to be honest. When we had the premiere of "Peter Pan goes to hell", I was nervous; I’m quite new to theatre, and then I was almost sick with nerves in the days leading up to it. Do you get nervous performing in theatre or when filming for TV? – Yes, I do, but it depends on what I’m doing. If I have to drive a bus in Indian left-hand traffic, I get very nervous. In those moments, it’s not just nervousness, it’s pure terror if I’m to be honest. When we had the premiere of "Peter Pan goes to hell", I was nervous; I’m quite new to theatre, and then I was almost sick with nerves in the days leading up to it.

Are you driven by challenging yourself to constantly do new things?

– Yes, that's probably how it is, and I suppose it's a way to develop. But sometimes I wish I could calm down and not have so many new things going on all the time.

Are you interested in politics?

I've always been interested in politics and find it fun, but I've never been involved in it. I wouldn't want to be. My role is to make humour and jokes, and that's partly based on examining things from different perspectives and being able to joke about politics. I want to be able to have that opportunity, and you can't be involved then; you have to be someone who looks at it from the outside instead.

Har du någon favoritkomiker?

I like classics, such as Seinfeld and Ricky Gervais in The Office, but I have a fairly broad sense of humour. When I'm not working, I don't consume comedy, so I tend to watch more documentaries or thrillers.

What are you looking at right now?

– I've got stuck on dating shows. It's a kind of involuntary humour, there's something lovely when awkward situations arise. There's a series on Netflix called Love is Blind and I'm watching that. They sit in some sort of pods and can't see each other, just talk, and then they have to decide if they're going to get married (laughs).

What makes you burst out laughing?

– Slapstick is quite funny, it's hard not to laugh at people falling over and hurting themselves. (laughs) Slipping on banana skins. I like classic silly jokes, the kind that bypass the brain and go straight to the gut and make you laugh.

You previously said you are interested in following projects and entrepreneurship. Are you an entrepreneur yourself?

– I create my own jokes and test them, and I put together my own shows. I enjoy putting my own stuff together and coming up with ideas, writing books, and that sort of thing. I like bringing people together, if you have the right team that can carry out a project together. When I was studying, I loved group work. It's incredibly cool when you get a good team together that does something good together. I have my own limited company but I find numbers and accounting and things like that very boring, so I've gladly handed that over to others.

3 Quick Ones 

«I love going home to Skåne. I was born and raised in Lund and feel at home there and my parents live there. That's the most enjoyable thing.»
“When I was little, we always visited the west coast in the summer and it's always lovely to come to Bohuslän.”
«I'm very fond of travelling by train. When you've travelled a lot by train around the world, in India among other places, it's incredibly luxurious to step onto a Swedish train! I don't understand people who complain about SJ. It's spotlessly clean, you could eat off the floor! Sure, the trains can be a bit delayed sometimes, but that's nothing compared to many other places where I've travelled by train. You sit there on the train and have Wi-Fi. It's quiet and peaceful and nobody trying to sell you things all the time. I think it's positive and cosy to sit on a train, even if it's a long journey.”

When did you discover you were funny?

I was quite shy and quiet as a child, but when I went to school, I noticed I could make people laugh. I was always the smallest in the class. Small, frail and weak, rubbish at sports, rubbish at music and rubbish at drawing. My thing, as I've realised since, was that I could make people laugh now and then. That was the thing that became my way of asserting myself.

I guess it was popular with the girls too. Funny guys tend to go down well with girls.

– Maybe it was... though I barely understood it then.

What do you do when you're not working?

I don't really have a hobby, because my hobby kind of became my job. I don't have a big record collection in the basement or anything, sometimes I wish I had a hobby that was just a hobby. When I'm off, I spend time with family and friends.

What's your signature dish when you're cooking for guests?

– Various versions of traditional Indian home-style dishes. A common dal, lentil stew, might sound humble but it can be very tasty. Simple dishes with cauliflower or potatoes, prepared with love using spices from scratch, can outperform more complicated meals. You don't need much to cook Indian food. If you just have chilli, garlic and a few spices, you can prepare an Indian dinner.

What are you reading at the moment?

– I'm reading my dad's book. My dad is 86 years old and he's chosen to write a book about his life. I read it while he was working on the book, but now I have the printed book version. The book is called Meeting Mr. Shelley, by Satish C. Batra.

What are you listening to?

– I listen to news podcasts and P1. I don’t have a huge interest in music, so my musical taste is quite broad. I have a 16-year-old daughter and I listen to her music choices. Sometimes I can see on her Spotify that she's listening to Ebba Grön, Noice or other old Swedish 70s and 80s music that I used to listen to myself when I was in secondary school. It’s quite fun and nostalgic. You’ve travelled to all corners of the earth, lots of interesting places.

What exciting trips are coming up?

– Örebro. I'm going there next week. I'm also going to Västerås in a few weeks. Other than that, I don't have any other exotic trips booked.