American Desi

American desi

Another brick in the wall of movies with the ‘I question the basis of your perception’ theme. Another movie from the hat of those of Indian origin bred abroad and now having a problem with the colour of their own blood. Well I for one am an Indian in mind heart and soul. So you NRIs and POIs do fill me in on your side of this concept.

Well here’s a little something bout the movie

Written and directed Piyush Pandya

Produced: Piyush Pandya, Deep Katdare and Gitesh Pandya

Cast: Deep Katdare, Purvi bedi, Ronoder Lahiri, Rizwan Manji, Sunita Param, Kal Penn and Anil Kumar.

Well the story is about this guy Krishna Reddy living in the US of A with his parents.

Kris is an “ABCD-American born confused Indian”

The movie begins with the day of his freedom (in his regard at least) when he is moving into engineering college from home. His parents are typically Indian , while this chap despises everything about his roots. So much so that he dislikes being called Krishna and wants to be called Kris.

He moves into college, with lotsa aspirations and hopes of having freed himself from the Indian web only to find them all dampened soon. He realizes that he is a roommate with a bunch of Indians. Three of them whom he describes wiz .

one who hasn’t shut up from when he arrived(jagjit singh),

one who had stunk up the place with Indian food(salim) and

one who thins of himself as the reincarnation of Mc hammer(ajay).

There is a bright side to the raw deal he had been offered. There is this ravishing, mind-blowing gal (nina) in his engg class and he totally flips for her. He even gets himself into a Indian cultural forum for her. Farah is another girl in their class who likes Salim and Jagjit is Van gogh’s reincarnation.

The movie is thus basically about their clashes and skirmishes. She slaps him the first times he kisses her, hates his indifference towards his own culture and is out to make him accept something he ridicules. The fact that he was too American for her and she too Indian for him is all it is about. The bottom line is, once an Indian, always an Indian.

Coz, the hip hop cool yo Kris, had to finally learn dandya and garba in the middle of the night to woo his lady love, adorn a kurta, pajama and fight the villain out.

nice parts of the movie the pick up line that Kris uses on Nina the first time he sees her is pphew! Damn innovative. I would personally be very amused by it if someone asked me out like that.

Salim and Jagjit are both really cute and perform appreciably. Ajay steals the show for humour. He will bring a smile on your face for a split second at least. Nina and Farah are nothing special.

Reality about Indian men is portrayed well. Everyone loves hot chicks and cool babes to flirt around and have fun but when it comes to settling down they’d always vouch for a timid, well groomed (culinary vise) lady who’d soothe him when he returns from a hard day’s work.

Also the fact that there is this mental block or stigma against art studies in our country. Even if there are 4 engineers and 2 docs in every street sitting at home without a job, professional colleges include doctor or engineer. Parents continue to ram those degrees down their children’s throat. May be only one in ten parent’s look at fashion design or sports or dancing as a means of survival. That’s precisely what Jagjit goes through.

Not so nice parts the baseless intense ridiculing of Indian cultures, habits, beliefs, food, punctuality, dressing sense, all get a little too overbearing.

The Indian supermarket ’panchvate’ is picturised a little too meanly.

The Indian TA arriving late in class and asking for a ‘rubber’.

Salim realizes Farah’ goodness as soon as he spots her in a burkha in a mosque.

Music really entertaining, soothing, interestingly beautiful music.

Brian “bongo” Davis composes it

ones like ‘young American’ and ‘passage to India’ are really good. Then there are the oldie Goldie melodies mere sapno ki rani and aap jaisa koi.

overall