Nimesh Patel (born 1986) is an American comedian and television writer. In 2017, he became the first Indian American writer on Saturday Night Live for one season.^[1][2]

Patel was born in 1986 in Parsippany–Troy Hills, New Jersey, into an immigrant Indian Gujarati Hindu family^[3] and graduated from Parsippany Hills High School.^[4] His parents immigrated to the United States from India in the 1970s. His father first came to Newark, New Jersey, as a 17 year old and worked as a cashier at a Macy's. He eventually opened a liquor store in a troubled neighborhood with heavy African-American organized crime and gang culture in nearby Irvington, often being robbed and also shot at.^[5][6]

Patel moved to New York City to attend New York University, initially as a pre-med student. He has lived in the city ever since. He graduated with a degree in finance in 2008.^[7]

After graduating, Patel began working during the day and performing standup at The Stress Factory by night.^[6]

In 2015, he was doing standup in Greenpoint, Brooklyn when he was discovered by Chris Rock. Patel then joined Rock's writing team for the 88th Academy Awards ceremony.

In 2016, he was a finalist in Kevin Hart's Laugh Out Loud Network Pitch Panel at Just for Laughs ComedyPRO.^[8]

Patel also wrote material for Hasan Minhaj's 2017 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner appearance.^[9] In 2017, he began working as a full-time writer for Saturday Night Live, mainly writing jokes for Weekend Update. In 2018, Patel was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for his work on SNL.^[1] He worked for SNL for one season.^[10]

Patel has appeared on @midnight, Comedy Knockout and Late Night with Seth Meyers. He has also featured as a comedy and politics panelist at the Foreign Affairs Symposium at Johns Hopkins University.^[11]

On November 30, 2018, roughly twenty-four minutes into a comedy set, Patel was interrupted and asked to leave by the organizers of cultureSHOCK: Reclaim, an event for Asian representation hosted by Columbia University's Asian American Alliance.^[12][13][14] On October 7, 2020, Patel posted a video of his full Columbia set in response to an article he believed to be untruthful.^[15]

Patel's main comedic influences are Chris Rock, Larry David and Patrice O’Neal.^[16]

Patel is a non practicing Hindu.^{[citation needed]}

Patel criticized the Partition of India on one of his shows, as part of his "Come see me on tour!" and criticized a British Indian woman in the audience defending British Colonialism and tyranny in India, eventually calling out the stolen Indian Kohinoor diamond by the British royal family and calling the woman a self-loather.^[17]

He used to live in Hell's Kitchen, Midtown Manhattan, but now resides in Brooklyn. He is a regular comic at the Comedy Cellar, a comedy club in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan.^{[citation needed]}

He married Amy Havel in 2020.^[18]

• 2017 - Nominated for Writers Guild of America Award for Comedy/Variety (Music, Awards, Tributes) – Specials for the 88th Academy Awards
• 2018 - Nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series^[1] for Saturday Night Live

• Nimesh Patel on the IMDb