American Desi

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American Desi
American Desi DVD Cover
Directed by	Piyush Dinker Pandya
Produced by	Deep Katdare Cyrus E. Koewing Gitesh Pandya Piyush Dinker Pandya
Written by	Piyush Dinker Pandya
Starring	Deep Katdare Purva Bedi Ronobir Lahiri Rizwan Manji Salim Ali Khan Kal Penn Ajay Pandya Anil Kumar Sunita Param Aladdin Ullah Eric Axen Sanjit De Silva Sunil Malhotra Ami Shukla Krishen Mehta Smita Patel Bina Sharif
Release date(s)	2001
Running time	100 min
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

American Desi is an American film with South Asian influence, notable for featuring almost all South Asian American actors. Considered to be the watershed movie for young South Asian American audiences or desis, it served as a precursor for other such movies such as Green Card Fever and Dude, Where's the Party?. It was also the watershed for new remixed dance music that feature South Asian vocals with western beats and melodies. It was the first hit movie for Kal Penn, star of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

An American-raised Indian, Krishna Reddy (or Kris, as he prefers to be called) finds out that his college roommates are all Indian. He does not associate with the Indian culture that his parents and family have pushed upon him and prefers to be as American as possible. His roommates include Ajay (Kal Penn), an African-American idolizing desi, Jagjit, who loves art but studies engineering to please his father, and Salim, who feels Indian-American girls are too Westernized to make good wives. Kris meets Nina, a girl who he immediately falls for, and is surprised to find out that she is Indian. The movie revolves around him making mistakes and trying his best to win Nina over, from joining the Indian Students Association to be near her, to learning how to perform a Dandia Ras to impress her. The ultimate goal of the Indian Association is to put together an Indian show, which they all must help with. Kris eventually begins to enjoy the company of his roommates, all of whom put together their knowledge and skill to help Kris impress Nina through various ways involving the Indian culture. The night of the show, the 4 roommates show up. There is a fight scene at the end between Nina's boyfriend Rakesh and Kris, and Kris wins. Jagjit's father sees what impressive statues he has made for the function, and is proud of his son. Salim eventually finds a girl (Farah, who is religious and can cook) that he does like, and though Ajay doesn't get rid of his "African American roots", it is implied that he has found a new friend in the president of the Indian Association. The Dandia ras and the whole Indian Association function goes off without a hitch.