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American Chai
Director: Anurag Mehta
Cast: Aalok Mehta, Sheetal Sheth, Aasif Mandvi, Paresh Rawal, Jeff Buckley.
 It revolves around Sureel, a first-generation Indian-American college student, who has a passion for music but is unable to tell his traditional custom-bound father, who himself had left India for the American dream. So Sureel has to resort to various tricks in the trade to escape his father's hawk eyes when he's dating his American girl-friend, or when he's pursuing his music in college, while his father thinks he's doing medicine. Whether Sureel is able to balance the two contrasting cultures and discover his real self, forms the rest of the story.
The story-line is simple and the narrative style uncomplicated. While debutant Aalok (Director Anurag's brother) has an endearing, lovable demeanour and works through his role without fuss, it's Paresh Rawal with his delightful performance as the tradition-bound father, who is the scene-stealer.
Finally, if you think that it's only our so-called 'commercial' films that have fallen into a rut of stereotyped characters, similar story lines, and predictable situations, many of the new genre of cross-over Indian-English films too are guilty of following a set predictable pattern, whatever their pretensions otherwise! 'American Chai', Anurag Mehta's directorial debut is the latest in the list, with its jibes at some of the Indian traits and habits, songs in Indian films, etc., though it doesn't completely spare the American way of life either. 'American Chai' is mildly funny, with humour laced few and far between.
Malini Mannath
Published on 26th July 2003
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