VH1’s Best Week Ever has a list of professions that are one step away from extinction. At number four is the job of “Acting and Being Indian - Kal Penn”

There’ll always be bit parts for Indian actors as doctors and goofy telephone operators, but Kal Penn has blazed a trail for the Indian lead actor, much as Sidney Poitier blazed a trail for nonthreatening, gentlemanly African-Americans that white adults could patronizingly tolerate. If Penn continues his Hollywood ascent (”Namesake II,” anyone?) we may be watching sparkly, four-hour Bollywood music videos in theaters by 2015, but when Penn dies, where is that going to leave the industry??