Sindhu Vee's standup show Swanky is on tour in the UK until 17 April, and the comedian has been explaining what happens in the minutes before she walks on stage. "Makeup, music to feel reckless, two pieces of milk chocolate – and then I go on," she told the Guardian in a new interview about her preshow routines, her self-described "very swanky hairstyle" and her joke about Indian Santa Claus.

The ritual is brief but deliberate. Chocolate, makeup and the right music put her in the frame of mind she needs. Then the former investment banker steps into the lights.

Vee's route into comedy was not planned. She moved from banking to being a stay-at-home mother before she ever tried standup, and even then the transition was accidental. "I didn't go on purpose from one to the other," she said. "There was absolutely no previous thought process. I got on stage almost by chance, and a lot of alcohol was involved. Standup found me, and I've never left it alone."

Swanky, her latest show, draws on a difficult period. Vee's parents died in quick succession recently, and their absence forced a reckoning. "I realised I had to champion myself," she said. "I took a long hard look at my life and I thought: actually it's not going that badly."

The show's title comes from her father's vocabulary. "A word my father used for things that were good but kind of like mysterious and cool was swanky," Vee explained. "I suppose one could say that my life is swanky. Why not?"

The word has also shaped the show's visual identity. Vee got what she calls "a very swanky hairstyle and a dress for the poster" — a small act of self-assertion that carries emotional weight. "In the absence of my parents, I had to do it," she said. "They were big champions of me."

She describes the show itself as continuous with everything she has done before. "It's just the continuing story of Sindhu Vee!" she said. "The trials and tribulations, the victories and losses."

Vee's career now spans banking, motherhood, standup and acting, and her comedy routinely draws on that material — including, as the interview notes, a joke about Indian Santa Claus. The Guardian interview forms part of its regular series on performers' preshow rituals, offering a glimpse of the mechanics behind the polish audiences see.

For audiences, the practical point is straightforward: Sindhu Vee: Swanky tours the UK until 17 April, with dates listed on her website. It is a show built from grief reframed as self-championship — and, by its author's own assessment, a life that qualifies as swanky.