Probably the 1st Indian I remember outside Apu from Simpsons in media

Back in the 90s, the young M. Night Shyamalan was the 1st Indian I remember in the mainstream western media outside of Apu from The Simpsons. Obviously in the late 90s with movies he directed like The Sixth Sense and Stuart Little, but also even the earlier 90s with a much lower budget flick called Praying with Anger. OK, technically there was a film directed by an Indian and even about Indians in the western world before M. Night back in 1991 called Missisipi Masala, but that movie kinda came and went and the focus was more on African American stud Denzel Washington then any of the Indian actors or actresses.

In the 90s it was such a big deal to see an Indian on TV, and in the 80s forget it....never happened. Post 2000 you have CNN's Sanjay Gupta, dozens of media news personalities both local and nationally, comics such as Aziz Ansari, Paul Varghese and actor/comedians like Mindy Kaling and other early pioneers like Russell Peters and Kal Penn.