We are Muslims. My father would pawn off his Muslim in-laws as Hindus just so that he could get free pancakes.
AASIF MANDVII 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.
More Aasif Mandvi Quotes
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The artist never really has any control over the impact of his work. If he starts thinking about the impact of his work, then he becomes a lesser artist.
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Now the bigots have to get creative. Good luck coming up with slurs for Chechens. Go back where you came from, Ushanka head.
AASIF MANDVI -
An artist’s job is simply to take the mirror in front of your face and hold it there. It’s not to give you any answers. It is simply to take that mirror and point it at you.
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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.
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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 think that hijacks the spirituality and beauty that exists within Islam. I believe in allowing Islam to be seen in context and in its entirety and being judged on what it really is, not what you think it is.
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If you don’t acknowledge differences, it’s as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.
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 -
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.
AASIF MANDVI -
When I was 11 my friend’s mom made a peanut butter sandwich. I ate the sandwich and was like, ‘I’m never eating anything else again.’ And I still eat peanut butter every day. I would put peanut butter on a steak.
AASIF MANDVI -
I’m Muslim the way many of my Jewish friends are Jewish: I avoid pork, and I take the big holidays off.
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So I had this completely unrealistic idea of what America was — but I wanted to be there.
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Because to Americans, Chechnya might as well be a suburb of Narnia.
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In Britain, you never get away from the fact that you’re a foreigner. In the U.S., the view is it doesn’t matter where you come from.
AASIF MANDVI -
England has an interesting relationship with the Indian subcontinent because the years of colonization and the history between the two places.
AASIF MANDVI






