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By V. Radhika/Toronto

Here is a familiar script: guy gets hooked by ‘Destination US’ dream, migrates and is snapped up by the software world. Full stop. Well, not quite. Manish Gupta, 35, decided to replace his full stop with a comma and create a new ending. In 2001, this software professional quit his cushy job at Genesis International and enrolled at New York Film Academy.

By the time he finished his course a year later, Gupta had the script and finances ready for his first feature film, Indian Fish in American Waters. A romantic comedy, it looks at the immigrant experience through the relationship between an FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) Indian immigrant and an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) gal.

"To survive as a film-maker, I have to do projects that sell," says director Manish Gupta (left). "Indian Fish in American Waters (above, a film still) is a comedy and not a realistic picture of FOBs or ABCDs."

Certainly not a new idea, but as Gupta says, "To survive as a film-maker, I have to do projects that can sell." Logic that comes from his managerial background. An MBA, Gupta worked in the tourism sector before venturing into the world of computers. "[The film] is a comedy and not a realistic picture of FOBs or ABCDs," he says. His wife, Malvika, an IT professional at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, handled the non-creative aspects of the film. She was also its execu-tive producer.

The film had its world premiere in New York in November 2003 and it featured last month at Toronto’s Reelworld Film Festival. Jubilant over the response, Gupta says, "I am working on my next movie with the confidence and money that have come from Indian Fish."

While Indian Fish was targeted at an Indian audience (in India and abroad), Karma, Confessions and Holy aims at a global market. "We are creating something Indian, but which will appeal to global audiences, like Monsoon Wedding," he says. Karma revolves around four couples who meet over weekends and traces the meandering course of their relationships.

A native of Madhya Pradesh, Gupta believes in experimenting—with his films and his life. After taking his MBA from Haryana’s Kurukshetra University, he moved from Delhi to Mumbai to Indore working in airlines, in travel agencies and as a university professor. These were interspersed with spells as a writer, painter and photographer. "I kept changing hats," he says. "It was very easy." Then, in 1998, he felt his life was going nowhere and migrated to the US with Malvika. They worked as software programmers before Gupta moved into IT marketing and sales.

So how about Bollywood? "I would love to," he says. "I would probably make a murder mystery." But right now his priority is "to make two movies in three years. We want to become a big banner".