Long ago, in the year 1983, a man with a mustache and a woman with mermaid hair made their way to New York City. The woman was scared to pick up the phone because her accent made people shout as if she were deaf. The man, a doctor, smiled brightly even as his colleagues shut him out of the normal rites of passage: no welcome dinner, no slaps on the back.
These are Ramesh and Nisha Shah, the fictional parents of Dev Shah. They’re played by Shoukath and Fatima Ansari, the real parents of the show’s creator, star, and director, Aziz Ansari.
What makes his parents ordinary makes them, in this context, special. The Ansaris are all of our parents, who would probably surprise us if asked to cameo on television with their outsider’s charm, whether through a sweetly stilted monotone (Ma Ansari) or a totally singular sense of humor (Pa Ansari).
That said, when I first watched episode two — titled “Parents” — I couldn’t quite catch my breath.
