TWO DOSAS | Omeleto

A man takes his date to an Indian restaurant.

Pavan -- a teacher in London who grew up in England -- takes fellow educator Chloe on a date. Pavan aims to impress "English rose" Chloe by taking her to the most authentic Indian restaurant in the city and eventually winning her over with a confident "heart on the sleeve, sleeve in her face" approach to romance.

But then Chloe upend Pavan's expectations, ordering an "authentic" Indian dish off-menu, demonstrating a rapport with the restaurant staff by speaking Hindi and eventually revealing to Pavan her past romance with another Indian man, who she backpacked with through India.

Pavan -- who ordered the somewhat cliched dosas at the restaurant -- becomes insecure, questioning his own authenticity as an Indian when faced with Chloe's obvious fluency with his supposedly "native" culture. As the night's misadventures continue, Pavan realizes he must either accept himself as he is, or spend the evening trying to keep up in a race he may not win.

Directed by Sarmad Masud, and written by Masud and Nikesh Shukla, this charming, nimble British short is both a romantic and social comedy that upturns notions about cultural authenticity while entertaining with a deft cocktail of witty writing, fluid camerawork and endearing performances.

What works so well in the script is how it takes questions about ethnicity, authenticity and even post-colonialism and integrates them beautifully into the emotional fabric of the short.

Pavan assumes his "otherness" as a British-born South Asian man gives him an advantage with Chloe, but the storytelling delightfully unravels this assumption about Pavan, and about Chloe as well. The film plays her enthusiasm for Indian culture as both genuine, and perhaps gently questioning the idea of the "cultural tourist." But despite the potential weightiness of topics like race and colonialism, there's no heavy-handedness in the wonderfully jazz-like dialogue or the effervescent comic timing of the film and actors.

Actor Himish Patel -- now appearing in feature film YESTERDAY -- anchors the film with a great turn as Pavan, who balances awkwardness, charm, and bashful flickers of both vulnerability and confidence in such a way to make Hugh Grant jealous. With each specific beat, he adroitly steers the femotional arc of TWO DOSAS into its final movement towards realization and acceptance. It's not that he's not Indian enough, he realizes -- it's that he and Chloe aren't a good fit. And in the end, he just needs a girl who loves dosas as much as he does.

[canterlevi]

I like how the friends were ‘on the date with him’ as he explained what happened.

[BadLeoG]

For those of you saying that she didnt speak "perfect" Hindi. That's because the guy has no idea what perfect hindi sounds like. He can't speak it!

[thephilosopher]

It would be HILARIOUS if you can simply go sit down, watch your friend having his / her first date and simply enjoy your drink and comment like his two friends! LOL

[jayabhaskardadi]

When she is explaining the old indian men sitting style, I was in that exact style by then. took me by surprise. And when the indian music started, i started tapping my fingers to the beat only to find the restaurant owner tapping the exact same way.

Are we all Indians just the same? Existential crisis.

[madd]

Guys, it's not necessarily that he's ashamed of his Indian heritage, he probably just hasn't been taught it by his family.
Notice he keeps going back to the idea of table manners. It's one of them post - colonial things. He's never gonna be fully accepted as English coz he's brown but he's never gonna be fully accepted as Indian coz he's a coconut.

[nikkitytom]

Had to have a bit of a chuckle. My dear husband was a Punjabi ... very well educated and cosmopolitan. I'm a Canadian with a British background. But I loved Indian culture which endeared me to his family but did cause the occasional bit of concern from him. I had my nose pierced while he was on a business trip. When he came home and saw it he said ..."If I would have wanted a villager, I would have chosen one ...". There was a moment of silence before we both exploded with laughter. Forty years later and now widowed, the nose ring is still in situ. 🙏

[Mona-g]

Vinay must have really impressed her with his ways. He has practically converted her to Indian, LOL.

[johankaruyan]

OMG he's the guy who wrote 'hey dude'

He's a musical genius

I didn't know he acted in a movie

[anoushkaprashanth]

oof. this addresses some of the issues that the Indian diaspora faces really well. what was especially relatable at least for me is how he views india––sense of wanting to reject colonialism + return to motherland kinda thing but also being fundamentally separated from india and indian culture because of his upbringing. i love how they portray this as a valid conflict + identity

[EtceteraTrademark]

I absolutely love the way they included the two friends into the conversation.

[value]

"A coconut. - skin is brown and everything else is white "
-Romesh Ranganathan

[kanishk]

She not only outbrowned him, but also me.

And I was born, raised and still live in India.

[indy]

I think a lot of people are not getting the story behind this movie (especially the blonde girl and the Indians in the comments section).

This guy has lived all his life in England and may be has never seen India. That is also why at the beginning no faces are shown, but only the voices. When you hear them, you could not make out who is Indian or who is English. From the voices everyone is an English man.

A lot of people are expecting him to be Indian, even though his parents (like many parents who raise their children abroad) try to bring the children up according to the best local manners. So they won't teach them Hindi or the respective other language from India, not show them any cultural things from India, etc. In the end the children are more English sometimes than the English people themselves, eating Dosas with fork and knife for example.

So this girl, like the people in the comment section, think that this guy needs to be somehow Indian, which does not need to be be, as he is a citizen of England and has not much connection to India, apart from the fact that his parents are Indian.

This video is somehow showing the difficulty, especially second generation Indians abroad are facing. On the one side, their parents have not thought them anything about India (as a lot of people did not really like India when they left it, because of all the hardships they went through), on the other side the local population cannot look around the skin colour/ ethnicity of the second generation person, even though he/ she might not even know India. And therefore the local English Person might think that this "Indian" guy is an expert on India, when they themselves (the English, like in this video) know more about India then the so called "Indian" guy.

[nishantahvan]

He is more British than British.
She is more Indian than Indian...

[taleswithtrisha]

The weirdest thing about this was that he used a FORK to eat DOSA.

[RatherPratty]

“I speak two languages, my coloniser’s better than my mother’s.” – Unknown

[victorcabanelas]

Loved the waiter! When I was a kid, one of my grandads used to take me to a restaurant and the waiter'd throw everything at the table with that same desdain. Ohh, nostalgia...


Great film!!

[MichaelIZKOOL]

I think this is a nice example about how race doesn't really define you. You are just who you are, and that's that. Don't judge anyone by how they look, just get to know them and see if your personalities mesh.

[BangMaster]

I've met several white girls who know way more about India than I've ever heard of. Some of them talk about their travels to India, visiting some ancient voodoo places, going out on ferries in Kerala, meeting some gurus and doing yoga in their ashram, then they talk about Indian food, and I'm just sitting their thinking "wtf is going on"

[vinodkumarakula]

Boy : I am gonna show her some nice indian taste
Girl : *UNO reverse card