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.

Om Podcasten

Wake up! Saturday School is a podcast where Brian Hu (@husbrian) and Ada Tseng (@adatseng) teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. New episodes released Saturdays at 8am, when all your friends are still in bed watching cartoons. It'll be a blast from the past, as they dig up some of their favorite works they've come across covering Asian American arts & entertainment over the years -- and discover other gems for the first time. Saturday School is a proud founding member of Potluck, a collective of podcasts featuring unique stories and voices from the Asian American community. Sign up for our newsletter below for lecture notes!