Season 6, Ep. 1: Kal Ho Naa Ho (with Angilee Shah)

Saturday School Podcast

Season 6 of Saturday School (where we explore Asian films about Asian America) kicks off with us inviting one of our favorite people to talk about one of our favorite actors. Journalist Angilee Shah thought we were joking when we asked her to join us to discuss the 2003 film "Kal Ho Naa Ho," because 15 years of friendship hasn't taught her that we don't joke around about these things.

"Kal Ho Naa Ho" is about an Indian American family in Jackson Heights, New York who are struggling, a family friend who arrives from India on a mission to help them get their lives back on track, and a love that lasts multiple lifetimes.

We talk about Angilee's complicated relationship with Bollywood, its history of storylines about NRI characters whose lives are made better by rediscovering India and female characters whose lives are made better by falling in love with Shah Rukh Khan. We also dissect the America-flag-filled dance number "Pretty Woman," a remix of the Roy Orbinson song, to understand the stereotypically multicultural way Indians may have viewed America in the mid-2000s.

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"Inheriting" is a show about Asian American and Pacific Islander families, which explores how one event in history can ripple through generations. In doing so, the show seeks to break apart the AAPI monolith and tell a fuller story of these communities. In each episode, NPR’s Emily Kwong sits down with one family and facilitates deeply emotional conversations between their loved ones, exploring how their most personal, private moments are an integral part of history. Through these stories, we show how the past is personal and how to live with the legacies we’re constantly inheriting. New episodes premiere every Thursday. Subscribe to “Inheriting” on your app of choice

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