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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.

Aasif Mandvi

I never consciously got into comedy. It was sort of one of those things where I was a theater student, I was acting, I was doing comedy, I was doing dramatic stuff, so it’s been something that I’ve always done and enjoyed doing and had an instinct to be relatively good at.
AASIF MANDVI

Acting Comedy Conscious Done Stuff Theatre Thing
Re-colonizing it and sort of reverse-colonizing it to the point that today the national dish of Great Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala.
AASIF MANDVI

Chicken Dish Food National Reverse Today
I know the Gospel according to Mark better than I know any sura in the Quran.
AASIF MANDVI

Better Gospel Know Mark Quran
Paki- bashing was kind of this term that was used in general to beat up anyone that was from the Indian subcontinent.
AASIF MANDVI

Anyone Bashing Beat General Kind Subcontinent Used
The idea that I had anything to do with speaking about Islam or about the Muslim world was just absurd to my family. … I hadn’t been to the mosque in like 10 years.
AASIF MANDVI

Country Family Idea Islam World Year
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?
AASIF MANDVI

Identity Lot Searching Time Voice World
In America, people think being South Asian is still kind of exotic. When you go outside New York and Chicago and L.A., there are people who have never tried Indian food… they’ve never even tasted it!
AASIF MANDVI

America Chicago Country Exotic New York Outside People Thinking
Because to Americans, Chechnya might as well be a suburb of Narnia.
AASIF MANDVI

Chechnya Country might Narnia Suburb
I think family dynamics are definitely very interesting. And in my case my sister did get married. She gave my parents a grandchild.
AASIF MANDVI

Definitely Dynamic Grandchildren Interesting Married Parent Sister Thinking
In America, you have this kind of individualism and in the West, essentially, you have this individualism – this idea of my own personal fulfillment.
AASIF MANDVI

America Essential Idea Ideas Individual Kind Own West
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.
AASIF MANDVI

America Decide Family Land Like Opportunity Seem Sort
I don’t want to tell people what they should think.
AASIF MANDVI

People Tell Thinking Want
People lament that there’s no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don’t want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don’t get it both ways.
AASIF MANDVI

Asian Character Children Muslim People Role Written
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.
AASIF MANDVI

Asian Bullying Hazing Racism South Toward Way
Of course the law’s not racist.
AASIF MANDVI

Course Law Racist Result
So I had this completely unrealistic idea of what America was — but I wanted to be there.
AASIF MANDVI

America Complete Idea Unrealistic Wanted

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.

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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.

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