Why 'The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh' creator chose to set his new Prime show in the Steel City

By Samuel Long / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

There’s a new sitcom family coming to Pittsburgh, not unlike “The Johnsons,” of Lagos, Nigeria, or “Modern Family’s” Dunphys, of Los Angeles. This time, it’s the Pradeeps. 

“The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh” follows family members Sudha (Sindhu Vee), Mahesh (Naveen Andrews), Bhanu (Sahana Srinivasan), Kamal (Arjun Sriram) and Vinod (Ashwin Sakthivel), who came to the Pittsburgh suburbs chasing the American dream.

Two years later, they recount their hilarious — and often conflicting — experiences in an interrogation room after becoming embroiled with a polar-opposite family in the neighborhood.

All eight half-hour episodes of the comedy launched globally for streaming Thursday on Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Freevee. Series creator Vijal Patel, 49, said he’s “over the moon” for the premiere.

The Emmy-nominated Patel — as co-executive producer of “Black-ish” — created “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh” based on his own experiences.

In 1980, when he was 6, his family moved from Ahmedabad, India, to Monroeville so his parents could start a business building power system parts for NASA. It was a “wonderland,” Patel said, with few other Indians in his almost exclusively white neighborhood.

That didn’t stop him from making friends. He and a few neighbors used to patrol the woods looking for beer cans, specifically those featuring Steel City staples such as Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

“That was our treasure hunt,” Patel said. “And I was like, ‘This place is amazing. This place is a miracle, right?’ We all found our own American dream in Pittsburgh and it was so near and dear to me.”

With its history in steel manufacturing and “swath” of ideologies and cultures, Pittsburgh became a symbol of America to Patel. He wanted “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh” to represent that.

The show isn’t just based on Patel’s connection to Pittsburgh. It also intertwines his experiences as an immigrant starting his career in America.

Patel attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1993 to 1998 with a major in finance and engineering.

After graduation, he accepted a job at Goldman Sachs. But then his best friend and roommate, who had moved to Los Angeles to become a writer, told Patel he would be great at writing comedy. He rejected the Goldman Sachs offer and moved to California.

“I said it to my parents at the time, ‘I’m about to do something that I, too, think is foolish. But I have to try this.’”

Patel said he often reflects on the “wild left turn” he took by moving across the country, diverting from his original career path. But he has realized that his parents also took a “wicked left turn” by moving their entire family to America.

“I think they understood as people, as immigrants, that, ‘Yeah, of course we created a child that takes big risks because look at what we did,’” Patel said.

“Like, you know, they had no one to blame but themselves. All they asked is that I was honest with myself and if I’m not actually succeeding in any way, to fall back on my safety net that was a job at Goldman Sachs.”

Luckily for Patel, comedy writing worked out.

He scored his first writing gig in 2000 on the Nickelodeon series “100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd” (1999-2002) and went on to write for other shows, including “Till Death” (2006-2010) and “Black-ish” (2014-2022).

Though “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh” has a comedic premise, Patel said he wants to make a statement with the show.

“The youth experience is so varied and even within a family, they each have their own experience, right?

“People say ‘Oh, that’s an immigrant family,’ but each immigrant within that family has their own take on the move — the culture, whether they embrace it, whether they reject it, how it affects them, how they’re going to navigate.”

Additionally, Patel said it’s important to understand that, within the immigrant experience, sometimes individuals have to settle for something that’s not what they came for, and immigrants “shift” and keep going.

“They are so resilient and ‘can do,’” Patel said. “When they hit obstacles, they don’t turn back, they actually overcome, go around, go under or embrace that obstacle and turn that into an opportunity.

“I want to show that part of immigration, that they are just really resourceful and inventive and resilient people.”