Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Considering The Big Bang Theory's Raj Koothrappali - A View From East Indians

By Daniel Turbin


On the show The Big Bang Theory, sometimes abbreviated as TBBT, the lives of five close friends are featured - four men and a woman.

Sheldon and Leonard share a rental apartment and neighboring them is Penny's place. Howard and Rajesh (Raj) are coworkers with Sheldon and Leonard at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. The men are generally speaking nerdy but highly intelligent, specifically awkward around females and highly educated. Penny is just the opposite being a stereotypical blonde who is beautiful although not too smart. She also has got a sweet spirit and grew to become close friends with the four guys almost instantly after she moved to her apartment.

On TBBT, Raj is from India who's portrayed as somebody who is unable to speak with women, unless he is drinking. Raj is also shown as being highly intelligent but often bullied by other people. Rajesh has had a handful of romantic relationships, intimate and laid-back, with Western girls. He is also really in contact with his feminine side. Raj talks with his mom and dad by means of a web camera because they are in India.

The majority of Rajesh's habits on TBBT are in fact not really approved of by folks from India. East Indians may look at him as being a rebel, a defiant son and not really what a good East Indian man should be like. An East Indian man should be extremely manly, able to dictate and instruct his home, capable of getting a girl easily, and to be exceptionally deferential to his parents. Above all, men from India should certainly marry a woman of his dad's or mom's choice or at least a young woman from India who has the same faith as his dad and mom. Rajesh (Raj) Koothrappali has got none of these types of things. Indians could look at this as utter disrespect.

Americans from Indian descent could possibly view Raj as an role model. Not due to Raj's shyness and inelegance towards women but as a result of his nerve in not adhering to traditional Indian cultural norms. Some Americans from Indian descent won't have the same amount of consideration for native Indian traditions as native Indians would because they would be dramatically influenced by Western culture.




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