... felt super Indian is the fourth episode in Season 1 of the Netflix series, Never Have I Ever.
Synopsis[]
At Ganesh Puja celebrations, Devi questions how much she identifies with Indian culture, Nalini dodges acerbic aunties and Kamala frets over her future.
Plot[]
Devi finds herself confronting her Indian-American identity and what she wants from her future.
Later, Nalini, Devi, and Kamala are nervous about this Ganesh Puja because it’s the first since Mohan’s death and since Devi was disabled. But they plan to put on a brave face in front of the snooty and sarcastic aunties.
That plan doesn’t go as well as Nalini had hoped, since the sympathy for her loss is bad enough but it’s the weird correlations the aunties keep making between Nalini’s very real tragedy and their inconsequential problems that really drive her up the wall.
The other problem is that the aunties are very good at giving advice, but nobody seems to stop to think whether Nalini even wants their advice. Maybe she just wants to talk about Mohan, whose loss the family isn’t handling very well and then being told that he won’t ascend to heaven until she spreads his ashes.
Nalini tries her best to keep calm, in the hopes of making a good impression and staying on everyone’s good side, because one never knows when you will need these people. But it’s been a terrible day and she just needs one win, which she gets in the form of the pandit. It’s quite the honor to get a little extra time with the pandit and offering to drop him off at Home Depot earns Nalini some brownie points and the first understanding words of the day.
It also doesn’t help that Devi’s already had a confusing run-in with a friend of hers from Stanford, who is a fellow Indian-American who has completely embraced his Indian heritage after rediscovering his identity at college.
That’s not how Devi feels though because she’s not completely Indian, but she isn’t entirely American either, as white Americans keep reminding her.
With nowhere to go and nothing to look forward to, Devi takes her frustrations out on a school locker—only to be discovered by Paxton, of all people. He’s understanding of her anger and even compliments her on the sari she’s wearing.
Meanwhile, Kamala is the only one who attracts positive attention at Ganesh Puja, all because she’s engaged to an engineer she’s never met. This only makes her feel like more of fraud considering she only recently got back together with her boyfriend Steve.
When it’s time to pray to Ganesh, Kamala has only one thought in her mind, that her fiancé should fall in love with someone else so she can be free, and her longing for this is so etched on her face that even the pandit sees it.
If Kamala was hoping for some kind of inspiration, this puja is not it. She meets Jaya, the outcast in the community, with a story that could change Kamala’s life. Like Kamala, Jaya was once engaged to a very suitable Indian boy, but came to America and married someone else. The marriage didn’t last and now she’s alone with her children in the shadow of her two brothers who have done exceedingly well for themselves. She’s shunned by everyone around her and is desperately lonely. Kamala tries to put a positive spin on Jaya’s life, since this could eventually be her life, after all, but Jaya point-blank declares that she wishes she’d listened to her family.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Devi Vishwakumar
- Richa Moorjani as Kamala Nandiwadal
- Darren Barnet as Paxton Hall-Yoshida
- John McEnroe as the voice of The Narrator
- Poorna Jagannathan as Nalini Vishwakumar
Guest Starring[]
- Anjul Nigam as Pandit Raj
- Wallace Langham as Ron Hansen-Bhattacharyya
- Aarti Mann as Jaya Kuyavar
- Chelly as Parvesh
Co-Starring[]
- Alice Amter as Auntie 1
- Chriselle Almeida as Auntie 2
- Sohm Kapila as Auntie 3
- Sarah Ripard as Auntie 4
- Viji Nathan as Older Auntie 5
- Sujata Aithal as Auntie 6
- Eric Evans as Cashier
- Gable Swanlund as Little Girl
- Jodie Bentley as Knowing Mom
- Kevin Gardner as Concerned Man
- Pragathi Guruprasad as Teenage Girl
Absent[]
Quotes[]
| “ | Last week, Mrs. Iyengar asked if we were going to show up at puja, or whether we, quote, "had to much going on." I could just hear the pity in her voice. Too much going on, for Ganesh Puja? That bitch. | ” |
| — Nalini |
| “ | Pray you get into Princeton. Don't waste your prayers on stupid things like world peace. | ” |
| — Nalini to Devi |
| “ | Oh, I don't know, Ron. Maybe it's my perfect grades or my killer test scores. Or maybe it's my bitchin' personality or my insane PowerPoint skills. I don't need some washed-up white dude, who leases a Tesla, telling me what makes me special. | ” |
| — Devi to Ron |
Trivia[]
- This is the first episode where Ben doesn't appear.