Where's the Party Yaar? (2003)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Benny Mathews

Writers:

Benny Mathews (writer)
Soham Mehta (writer)

Release Date:

28 May 2004 (India)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Harish Kumar Patel lives with his mom and dad in Bhimnagar, Gujerat, India, where he is studying Electronic Engineering...

Plot Keywords:

Party | Indo Pak | Desi | Friend | Dance

Cast

Diwakar Pathak	...	Satish Kumar Patel
Sunil Malhotra	...	Hari (Harishkumar S. Patel)
Indravadan Tridevi	...	Bholey Shankar Maharaj
Arun Bakshi	...	Dr. Bakshi
Ulka Amin	...	Mrs. Bakshi
Shaan Puri	...	Deepu Bakshi
Kal Penn	...	Mo (Mohan Bakshi)
Ankur Patel	...	Hash
Tan Tu	...	Mechanic
Prakash Desai	...	Mr. Kumar
Mousami Dave	...	Poonam Mehta
Indi Wijay	...	Raju Mathews (as Indy Wijay)
M. Kabir
Charlie Flynn	...	Engineering Professor
Tina Cherian	...	Priya Varghese

Also Known As:

Dude, Where's the Party? (USA) (video title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sex-related humor.

Runtime:

USA:110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

Hindi | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Houston, Texas, USA

Company:

Music Masala Films

Trivia:

The film is based on Sunil Thakkar's own experiences running and throwing parties for the Music Masala radio station, and having to discriminate between "Fresh off the Boat" Indians and the more fashionable, hip, Americanized Indians. Ironically enough, Thakkar's character in the film is exactly the type of person he barred from parties in those days.

Quotes:

Janvi Valia: What's that stuff in your hair? It smells nice!
Hari: Oh, it's coconut oil! I use it every day!
Janvi Valia: It reminds me of my grandma.

Movie Connections:

References Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)

Modern FOBs are not like Hari

I agree with one of the previous posters who say that we Indians that were either born and/or raised in America (and U.K., Canada) are the ones that have it far tougher then FOBs. The modern FOB is not like how they are portrayed in this movie. The character of Hari in "Where's the Party Yaar?" is so obsolete by contemporary standards. Starting in the late '90s (somewhere around 1998 and 1999) FOBs became much more hip and cultured, and many of them can even be in better physical shape as well as dress better then a lot of Indians that were born and raised in America. That's no joke, I'm totally serious. Plus look at how much Western culture is exported out to the rest of the world. I'm telling you the India of today is not like the India of the 80s and 90s where there was one TV set in an entire village that picked up two channels that came in all scratchy and out of focus. Today India gets all of the current pop culture, and even that dude you see on the street selling beads made out of elephant crap has a cell phone. My grandmother in India has a cell phone! So when Indians come over to America and become "fresh off the boat" so to speak, the term is almost retroactive. There are of course still some old school FOBs here and there that walk around with dress pants, white sneakers, and some kind of garish orange shirt, but come on man they are much more a rarity these days. "Where's the Party Yaar?" is using the old school, pre-Late 90s FOB as it's focus point. This isn't 1982, 1985 or even 1995 when that old style FOB was still running around while the "cool" Indian Americans bragged about being closer to the White man (or closer to the thug Black man). The 21st century FOB is not like the FOBs that were around back during the 80s and 90s. What makes someone a FOB? The cutoff most people I know traditionally used was this, if you came to America when you were 10 years old or older, then you are a FOB.

But modern FOBs have their own cliques these days, and they hang out and party more then a lot of ABCDs do. A lot of this has to do with there being so many more young FOBs around then say there were back in 1985 or 1990. They push the "Desi" culture, which isn't mainstream All-American or not really old styled Apu from the Simpsons FOB Indian, the only two choices of "being" a lot of us growing up in the 80s and 90s had. They certify the Desi culture as bonafide cool. A lot of young FOBs I run into consistently look down on American raised Indians. They say we have no culture, that we are either "too White" (if you're a preppy Indian) or "too Black" (if you're a thug Indian). Hey they may be onto something. No matter what, we are always going to be Indians, especially to White America and the rest of the world. It's us Indians that were raised in America that are struggling to fit in more then the FOB. The FOBs have their heritage and history much more firmly held within them then most of us ABCDs do. They know they're Indian and they are proud of that, most of us born and raised in America don't know what the hell we are.