The West Wing Shows Some Desi Love

I just finished watching tonight's episode of the West Wing on NBC. Maybe it is John Wells (the producer of ER and The West Wing), or maybe NBC has simply discovered the Desi market in the U.S., b/c this episode of The West Wing featured who I thought was Pragna Desai (she starred in ER's episodes based in the Congo and The Ben Affleck flop The Sum of All Fears) as Leo McGarry's nurse.

In the episode, Leo has lost his appetite, and Desai, as his nurse--ok, so we still only play health care professionals (but it is a start!)--uses Indian food and her good looks to charm McGarry into eating.

Is a South Asian woman, dressed in her wedding best and bearing Indian food better than certain illicit substances at giving people the munchies?

Also interesting was some of the dialogue between Desai and McGarry. In the episode, McGarry was considering joining the board of some sort of corporate chemical company. The company seemed quite similar to Union Carbide, because at one point McGarry asked Desai if she was from Haryana, and that that the company was trying to make up for all of the damage it had done there in 1986. Perhaps this was a reference to the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal in 1984, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of this tragedy on December 3. The issue of a name-change was also discussed, a la Union Carbide to Dow Chemicals.

posted by sajit @ 10:50 PM