Friday 26 / April / 2024
You don’t know what Diwali is, do you?” Manmeet asks his American boss Todd Dempsy. “I know what it is. I just think it’s become a little commercialised, you know?” replies Todd. “It shouldn’t be about buying stuff. It should be about celebrating the birth of the Baby Diwali.” Welcome to Outsourced, NBC Studios’ quirky look at modern-day outsourcing.
Ben Rappaport, from Elementary and The Good Wife, is Todd Dempsy, the manager for Mid-American Novelties, whose entire call centre is outsourced to Mumbai, India. Being catapulted into a job halfway across the world, Dempsy needs to acclimatise quickly to local cultures and customs. Helping him to adjust to his new environs is fellow Yankee Charlie Davies, who runs a call centre for All American Hunter, and is obsessed with all things stereotypically American, including guns, hunting, and football (played by Diedrich Bader of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Cheers,and The Drew Carey Show). Also showing him the ropes are Tonya, the manager for the Koala Air call centre, her effervescent character excellently portrayed by Aussie actress Pippa Black of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Todd’s cossetted childhood in the heartland of America is only further emphasised when he commits a series of cultural gaffes, being totally unaware of Indian culture. His employees, though, always have his back. NBC have found an excellent star cast of Indian origin actors for the show, and their contrasting personalities are the source of much of the humour in this story.
Rizwan Manjit (NCIS, Glee, and How I Met Your Mother) plays Todd’s second in command, Rajiv Gidwani, who embodies corporate work culture from carefully coiffed hair to immaculately polished shoes. His ultimate aim is to run the call centre by himself, and to that end, he is rooting for Todd to either scale immense success or fail miserably, because either way, he will eventually become the call centre’s manager. As he tells his boss, “Your success is my success, your failures are also my success.”
The rest of the gang are very decidedly in the pro-Todd camp. Sacha Dhawan plays the aforementioned Manmeet, who’s easy-going, very friendly, and girl crazy. His character is a brilliant contrast to Parvesh Cheena’s character, Gupta, a talkative, very lovable employee who constantly yearns to be the centre of attention. Anisha Nagarajan is Madhuri, who’s seldom heard, and noticed just as rarely.
Her confidence grows throughout the show, though and she soon becomes one of the gang once they all notice her beautiful singing voice. Asha, played by Rebecca Hazlewood, is the voice of reason in the group, representing the quintessential Indian working girl caught in the crossroads between tradition and modernity, torn between making it on her own and acquiescing to her parents’ pressures to agree to an arranged marriage. She’s always willing to put a positive spin on things, though, once telling Todd that “an arranged marriage is like a bowl of soup that becomes warm over time”.
With some fantastic chemistry and hilarious antics from its actors, Outsourced is a show that liberally pokes fun at Western stereotypes of Indian culture and will have your sides aching. An oldy, but a goody that makes the perfect watch for Diwali. —[email protected]
The Short and Skinny
Name: Outsourced
Genre: Comedy
What’s it about: An American call centre manager has to travel to India because his job has been outsourced halfway across the world. Hilarious consequences ensue
Duration: 30 minutes
Who’s in it: Ben Rappaport, Diedrich Bader, Pippa Black, Sacha Dhawan, Rizwan Manjit, Parvesh Cheena, Anisha Nagarajan, Rebecca Hazlewood
IMDB Rating: 7.5/10
