The most common question people ask me is why I want to be a director or a filmmaker. Actually, I never really set out with that as my goal. What I really want to do is tell stories. I just happen to find film to be the most interesting medium to tell them in. Unlike the classical upbringing of other filmmakers, I did not have a Super8 or video camera where I made home movies and honed my editing skills. I grew up on the consumer side, being an avid fan of movies (or maybe I was just addicted to the hot-buttered popcorn). I remember my dad telling me stories in India about how he used to skip out of lectures in college whenever a new Raj Kapoor or Dev Anand movie was opening. I think that value system was passed on to me!! I'd rather be watching the next James Bond film than learning data structures.

It was during my college years, when I was getting my bachelors in Computer Science (because that's what we Indians do, right?), that I became interested in telling stories. Sometimes I would read an article or hear a song or see something happening on the street that would spark a story in my head. I began imagining scenes and my observations developed into movie plot lines. You wouldn't believe the crazy shit that my mind would conjure up from the most innocuous events. Once I saw a store clerk wheeling in a shipment of soda from a delivery truck. Innocent enough, right? Well I thought, what if this guy just came from India a few days ago and was an assassin? What if he was sent here by his father, a rich zamindar in India, to kill the store owner because his father owed the zamindar money from years ago!!! Or maybe his father stole the true love of the zamindar and he vowed to get revenge no matter how long it took!!! Now this guy is working in his story waiting for the right moment to kill him!!! These are the things that keep me up at night.

I got to a point where the ideas were overwhelming my brain and I had to do something about it. So I signed up for a class in scriptwriting to help me take these images, scenes, dialogues, and characters and develop them into a screenplay. They say the best stories come from real life. So as I learned the craft of writing a screenplay, I used events, characters, and situations from my life to write about. What came out of this was the story of American Desi.

It wasn't that hard to come up with the characters. I started with some basic personalities and built on them based on people I knew or had seen. I think they represent a wide spectrum of South Asians. For example, the main character, Krishna "Kris" Reddy is representative of the second-generation NRI. He goes through a lot of the experiences I went through when I went to Rutgers and was confronted by so many South Asians. I tried to give each character a definite issue to deal with: from Jagjit who wants to pursue his dreams while at the same time trying to please his parents (hmmm…this sound familiar??) to Ajay trying to forge a unique identity for himself…to Farah who tries to balance the East and West while living up to female stereotypes in South Asia.

I also love mythology so I tried to embed a little Indian mythology throughout the storyline of American Desi. It's a little subtle, but I hope people will catch the similarities between the character of Kris and various faces of Lord Krishna. I think Kris goes on the same journey, and through the same stages, which Joseph Campbell often talked about.

So I got together with some friends and we set out to make the movie. That was 1990 and the group was called JADE (Just A Dream Enterprise). We ended up making a different short film called Under One Roof.

Then the script sat around on my shelf for years afterwards while "reality" set in. After college I started working as a computer programmer and got sucked into the everyday working world. My dreams of making films took a backseat to a paycheck, promotions, vacations, 401(k), etc. But when you really want to do something, it never really goes away and several years later the itch reappeared. By now I was 29 and the pre-mid-life crisis set in. Oh my god! I'm almost 30 and what have I done with my life? I haven't really pursued my dream. So I decided, before I would end up regretting it, to make another attempt at making a film.

One thing about filmmaking, which is different from the other fine arts, is that it is a collaborative effort. You can't just do it yourself. Luckily (or maybe it was fate), I was surrounded by people with similar interests. We were all pursuing the same dream separately. I felt that we had a better chance of succeeding if we teamed up and focused on one project. So now I had this motley crew of filmmaker-wanna-bes. We needed a script to get things started. I remembered the script I had written 9 years before that was sitting on my shelf collecting dust. It was a simple romantic comedy that I felt could be done on a modest budget and showcase all of our talents. So I pulled it out, dusted off the cob webs and we set to work.

One thing I really wanted was to have this film look as professional as possible. Even though we were working on a low budget, I didn’t want this to look like a home movie. I feel the two people most important for a director are his DP (director of photography) and editor. You have to have someone who is not only talented but you implicitly trust to help achieve the vision you have in your head.

I had originally met Rob Tate (my editor) to get his feedback on the script. I wanted the input of a fellow filmmaker who was not South Asian. I never in my wildest dreams thought he would be interested in getting involved. Rob has worked on many films (some have even been in Sundance). So when he told me he loved the script and wanted to edit it, I was overjoyed. And I think the film is all the better for it.

Renato Falcao was Rob’s DP on his film ‘Neptune’s Rocking Horse’. When I saw that film I was amazed by how beautifully it was shot. I didn’t need much convincing to choose Renato as my DP. Besides being extremely talented, he is a constant perfectionist and sometimes would not let me move on until we had gotten the absolute perfect shot. His persistence, I think, has elevated the quality of the film to a higher level.

Casting the film was a lot of fun. I was pleasantly surprised that there are so many talented South Asians pursuing acting. Deep Katdare was already set to play the lead. He and I have been friends for many years and we started this film with the intent of it being the launching vehicle for both of us. Aside from being an incredibly talented actor, he was perfect for the role because in some ways he is also like the main character. He was born and raised here and you can’t get any more American than being born on the 4th of July. Everyone else went through the typical casting process. It was tough making the final choices. But I think I have one of the best ensemble casts. These guys are all extremely talented actors who have gone on and flourished with roles in TV, Film, and Theater. I think you’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the years ahead.

I had a definite structure I wanted the film to take. I wanted every aspect of the film to go along with the journey that Kris takes from American to Indian. During pre-production, I worked closely with the DP & Art Director to make sure everything worked together from costumes to lighting to set design. This is extremely difficult since the film was shot out of sequence but we were able to maintain the effect nicely. One area I wanted to play with was color. I am always told how bright and vibrant the colors in Indian culture are. So I wanted to start with duller, more subdued colors in the beginning and gradually change to bright colors in the end. As Kris goes more and more into his culture, everything starts getting brighter. The color blue also has a special significance. I wanted to use it as a subliminal indicator of the association of Kris to Lord Krishna at key moments in the film. I also worked closely with my Music Supervisor and Composer so the music also followed Kris’s transition from American (Rock n’ Roll) to traditional Indian (traditional garba).

Now, after years of hard work, American Desi will be released in theaters in Spring 2001 by Eros Entertainment. I think that moviegoers, whether desi or not, will really find the film to be fun and refreshing as it puts the spotlight on a side of the American landscape which is often overlooked. I am hopeful that if this film is successful (knock on wood) that it will open up a new avenue of films that tells the colorful stories of South Asians in the US. I think there are a lot of great stories that could be told….Let's hope for the best.