ZVM’s Indian Undercurrent

Thanks Arvind!

as reported in 2000 Census, per SiliconIndia :

• Asian Indian professionals are highly educated and upwardly mobile and growing.
• There are approximately 2 million Indians in the US.
• The Asian Indian populations grew by 106% in 1990 to 2000 in the US
• 75% of Asian Indians have at least a bachelor’s degree.
• Asian Indians have the highest household income of $61,322 amongst all of the ethnic groups.
• 47% of Asian Indians own their own homes.
• Asian Indians have an estimated buying power of $20 billion
• Largest number of Asian Indians lives in California.
• Median age of Asian Indians is 30 years.
• Twenty five percent of all start ups in the valley are started by Asians and large
  number of those is Asian Indians.

Had a interesting chat recently with Tapan Trivedi… the desi-origin comedian who opened the recent Naach show held at Amador Valley HS Theatre in Pleasanton CA. The jokes were actually quite funny (my favorite of course was UPS denying millions of brownies their pickup line “What can brown do for you”!) and intelligent. So we get talking and he mentions that he was a DBA at Oracle (!) before deciding to plunge into comedy…hmm the explains why my upgrades are a joke.

Tapan and his merry men are looking for the “mainstream” - y’know appealing to more than just the basic indian demographic. This is quite an interesting challenge as I’m a believer in niche more than the traditional mass market… the competition on the first level (desis only) needs to be scaled before you jump to the next (all americans). So does everyone know about Tapan Trivedi? If not, how do we start there and then get tp the next stage? That is the question…

Well this is the first step towards this.. a list of good comedians in a neutral area. If you are a comedian and would like to be included, please drop me a note at zenveda at gmail dot com.