Season 9, Ep. 4: ABCD

This week, we are revisting 1999's "ABCD," directed by Krutin Patel. It stars Sheetal Sheth and Faran Tahir as Indian American siblings, aka the "American Born Confused Desis" of the title. Madhur Jaffrey plays their mom, who has many opinions about who her kids should marry, and Aasif Mandvi (of "The Daily Show" fame) plays Sheetal Sheth's charming immigrant love interest. The late '90s and early 2000s were a prolific time for indie Indian American films exploring the second-gen experience, with "ABCD," "American Chai" (which also starred Sheetal and Aasif), "American Desi" (which featured Kal Penn), and "Chutney Popcorn" (another great comedy by Nisha Ganatra that we covered in a previous season). To contextualize, these films are all pre-"Bend It Like Beckham" (2002) and pre-"The Office" (2005-13), aka before the rise of Mindy Kaling. For this generation, Sheetal Sheth is the OG star who provided a much-appreciated image of a modern, rebellious, confident Indian American woman onscreen.

You can listen to Season 9, Ep. 4: ABCD online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Season 9, Ep. 4: ABCD is an episode from Saturday School Podcast by Saturday School Podcast.

This episode is 20:00 long.

This episode was published on Sep 21, 2024.

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