Aasif Mandvi Quotes

In some ways for many years I was off the hook.When my niece was born after that their attention was focused on that and she did that. You know, that was in our family that's what she did. I went off and chased this dream and this career that very other few people in our, you know, in my family, but even culturally were doing. I think family dynamics are definitely very interesting. And in my case my sister did get married. She gave my parents a grandchild. It is ironic that it doesn't matter how successful I am in any other capacity. Ultimately, my parents marker is do you have a wife? And do you have children? You do find a lot of your time in the West kind of searching for your place in the world - your voice, your identity, like, who am I? Like, what is my reason for being here, you know? And in that same way who am I to be partnered with, you know? There's this existential crisis in America and in the West of, like - who am I? - based on this searching for individual fulfillment, which you don't necessarily have in the East in the same way because you're kind of told what to do. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying that's just, like, the reality. In America, you have this kind of individualism and in the West, essentially, you have this individualism - this idea of my own personal fulfillment. Indian culture is essentially much more of a we culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate. From my parent's generation the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love. It was a partnership. It's about creating family. It's about creating offspring. We are Muslims. My father would pawn off his Muslim in-laws as Hindus just so that he could get free pancakes. For my parents it was all about getting a deal, my dad came to America and he heard of this concept of brunch. He didn't quite know what it was. And he thought it was this other meal that existed between breakfast and lunch. He was kind of like - I remember he sort of was like America has so much food that between breakfast and lunch they have to stop and eat again. They have brunch. It was completely legal it was, like, a legal meal that you could have. I mean, clearly it wasn't the only reason he came to America, but I said we are Ghodratis and there's nothing that Ghodratis like more than a bargain. You can get samosas in any pub in England today, pretty much. So, 'Gunga Din' has come back. Re-colonizing it and sort of reverse-colonizing it to the point that today the national dish of Great Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala. England has an interesting relationship with the Indian subcontinent because the years of colonization and the history between the two places. Bradford specifically there were a lot of Pakistanis there. Even today it has a very large Pakistani population.It was something that I experienced - getting chased home from the bus stop after school by English kids, boarding school, being targeted for praying to what they call Allah wallah ding dong. Paki- bashing was kind of this term that was used in general to beat up anyone that was from the Indian subcontinent. For anybody who's ever been on the other end of, like, racial violence logic is not something that can be used. I grew up on American pop culture so everything that I fantasized about to get out of this sort of humdrum world of Bradford was about America. So when we decided to move there I was on the plane. When my family decided to leave England I could not have been happier. I was sort of like - America seemed like the land of opportunity and, you know, it was Hollywood to me. This was in the '70s and there was a lot of racism towards South Asians and there was a lot of hazing and bullying and racism that really probably shaped me in some way in terms of, like, wanting to get out of there. I think I discovered my first, you know, my first image of a naked woman was sort of sneaking a peek at one of those magazines that was in my dad's store. My father got a job at Bradford University in textiles. And he came for - I guess, you know, why do people immigrate? - like, for a better life to find, you know, a new world. And, you know, I think he always - he saw it as an opportunity. And so yeah so we came to this coal mining town in the north of England and that's where I grew up. I think you had the GOP down there in North Carolina reaching out to African-American voters and this guy coming on television and using the N-word and saying what Don Yelton said. Of course the law's not racist. Voter fraud does just barely exist, while racism, according to the Supreme Court, is a thing of the past. Statistically there is enough voter fraud to sway zero elections. North Carolina precinct chairman and GOP executive committee member Don Yelton thinks his state's new voting restrictions are just fine. Samantha Bee said to me when I first started on the 'Daily Show', she was like no - there is no - the only way you'll learn this job is by doing this job. There's no school that you can go to and learn how to be a 'Daily Show' correspondent and how to interview people and, you know, essentially leave your soul outside the door and go in there and kind of, you know, destroy people's lives sometimes. I came from a very different sort of background and pedigree from the people who were on 'The Daily Show'. I was an actor. I was sort of - the irony is that I've done as much dramatic work in my career as comedic work and I don't really think of myself as a comedian.