Even as the Hollywood ‘Top Gun’ cruises across the country – visiting the Taj Mahal and attending film promotional events with seamless ease – amidst all the hullabaloo, a slightly crinkly Anil Kapoor standing beside Tom Cruise makes for an interesting picture. For, from being an outsider, who had to wait for months before Hollywood movies and TV series came here, to a place where the brightest stars come all the way down, especially, to woo Indian audiences, the country has undergone a 360-degree change.

Interestingly, likewise the Indian inside our television sets is evolving too, making fast inroads into the western world just as his voice has through the innumerable call centres. Exotica, as portrayed by Kabir Bedi, who played the Moroccan prince in the soap The Bold and the Beautiful, may have been our only forte for ages but globalisation, outsourcing and well-travelled minds have changed all that.

The Emergence of the Indian Character
The mysterious Indian is no longer just a ‘filler’ used to lighten up dramatic situations. He is far removed from the routine Sanjiv Patels or Parminder Kaurs who spoke in a weird accent and cooked spicy alu gobi for the joint family that always stayed together.

And though the stereotyping may not have changed much especially in the comic genre, the attitude has gone through a sea of transformation. Today’s Indian is totally unapologetic about being a desi. As immigrant scientist Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory proudly acknowledges, “I am brown and I talk funny.” As for his mannerisms, he is the average Indian who is a brilliant physicist and regularly speaks to his parents in India via webcam, but gets tongue-tied when speaking to women. Apu, another brown-skinned fellow in the popular The Simpsons, loves cricket because after all he is an illegal Indian immigrant, has had an arranged marriage, a dozen children and is seen running a 7/11 store. Talk about his hometown and he unabashedly breaks into a Bollywood dance with his dusky wife, Kalpana!

Just for Laughs
Indeed, the days when the famous drama series ER was the only hospital in the world without an Indian surgeon are long over and Indians are shown moving up the occupational ranks from being just immigrants who were janitors, housekeepers or store owners. Just like the able assistant Timmy in Rules of Engagement who may be expected to disappear on a magical carpet time and again, but is a walking encyclopaedia with an answer to every numerical query!

Their mannerisms have the western viewers in complete splits no matter how racist the mockery of the exotic Indian and his nomadic culture may sound. Whether it is the podgy paan-chewing Gupta from Outsourced or Ranjit, the driver, ferrying people 24-hours in How I Met Your Mother, the brown-skinned male is here to stay.

As for the desi damsels, apart from our sizzling import Freida Pinto, they are finally starting to get inconspicuous by their absence.

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