Indian Americans: From back office to center stage
Peter Sellers as Hrundi Bakshi - The Party 1968
Back in 1968, the actor Peter Sellers famously — and in the eyes of some, notoriously — caricatured a bumbling Indian actor named Hrundi Bakshi in a movie titled The Party. Mistakenly invited to a Hollywood dinner party, a gauche Hrundi Bakshi blunders through a swish gathering of American glitterati, evoking laughter and mirth with his unintended clumsiness. The film caused much offense in thin-skinned India, where there were calls to ban it. It even embarrassed and grated on the nerves of some of the hundred thousand or so Indian-Americans in the US at that time.
Fast forward some six decades, and you have Indians and Indian-Americans headlining in the US entertainment industry with growing frequency. From Priyanka Chopra in lead roles in mainstream tv dramas to Deepika Padukone presenting at the Academy Awards, Indian appearances on the frontlines of screen and celluloid is an increasingly common occurrence. Accent too is no bar, in the spirit of pioneers such as Henry Kissinger, Andy Grove, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who showed that foreign intonation need not stymie success, although in fairness America was largely built on caucasian immigration and the European accents that came with it. Not to make too much of the song "Naatu Naatu," but what would at one time have been a wince-worthy Oscar acceptance speech of its composer MM Keeravani, delivered in Indian- accented English, is now received warmly, without the ridicule that was reserved for the fictional Hrundi Bakshi. Expect to hear more Indian accents from the public stage in years to come.
Ajay Banga
Even beyond the entertainment industry, in almost every sphere of public life and activity, a community once seen as populating the back office because they lacked the flair and finesse to be leaders are now on the frontlines. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden nominated Ajay Banga, a turbaned Sikh and former Mastercard CEO, to head the World Bank. Indian-Americans winning c-suites is a common enough story now, but what is striking about Banga is that he is largely minted in India, from his academic credentials to much of his corporate experience.
While the entertainment industry is more secular and agnostic in this regard, comedy is a high wire act. As The Party episode showed, Indians are loath to laugh at themselves (or when they are caricatured). Not for us the sang-froid or indifference Kazakhs showed when Sacha Baron Cohen skewered them in Borat. But in a delicious irony, several Indian-Americans (Rajiv Satyal, Nimesh Patel, Aziz Ansari among them) have made a mark in the stand-up comedy business, often mining self-deprecatory material -- including accents -- from their own first-and-second generation immigrant experience to generate laughs. Not to forget Mindy Kaling's growing comedic oeuvre that has given us among others Never Have I Ever, a watershed moment in Indian-American representation on screen.
Hassan Minhaj hosting The Daily Show
The apogee without apology has been reached this month without much fanfare. Following the departure of Trevor Noah from Comedy Central's flagship The Daily Show, two Indian-Americans, Hasan Minhaj and Kal Penn, have in a sense auditioned to succeed him by guest hosting the program in successive weeks. Indian-Americans as news anchors is not all that unusual. Fox News' Uma Pemmaraju (who passed away last year), CNN's Patti Tripathi, PBS' Hari Sreenivasan have all delivered headlines in the news business going back decades.
But comedy is a different deal altogether. It requires the confidence of not only being self-deprecatory but also the chops to deliver derision and disparagement on other ethnicities, races, and nationalities – a risky act at the best of times. For an immigrant community and its descendants who have long been “otherized,” getting centerstage in comedy is some achievement — and privilege. The laugh's finally on us. In a good way.
Chidanand Rajghatta is the Times of India’s US-based Foreign Editor, long-time Washington D.C. scribe and sutradhar. In earlier roles, Rajghatta has worked with India’s leading news brands, including The Indian Express, The Telegraph of Kolkata, India Today, and The Sunday Times of India. He received his Master’s Degree in mass communication from Bangalore University, Bangalore. He is the author of The Horse That Flew: How India’s Silicon Gurus Spread Their Wings, Illiberal India: Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason and Kamala Harris: Phenomenal Woman.
