- "You bad man! You very very bad man!"
- ―Babu Bhatt to Seinfeld.[src]
Babu Bhatt is an immigrant from Pakistan. Jerry seems to mess up his life at every turn. Babu is played by Brian George.
Story[]
Babu is an immigrant from Pakistan. In "The Cafe", Babu opens a restaurant, the Dream Cafe, but nobody seems to go in. Feeling sympathy for Babu, Jerry goes to try the restaurant, where Babu serves him heartily, along with Elaine and Kramer. Babu gets advice from Jerry to renovate the restaurant and serve dishes from Pakistan to make his business more authentic. Delighted by the suggestion, Babu closes the restaurant and borrows more money for the renovation. Despite the change, however, his business is still without customers. When Jerry returns to the restaurant, Babu becomes aloof and cold with him until he finally snaps that Jerry "made" him change the restaurant and put him in more debt for nothing. The business fails and Babu is forced to close.
In "The Visa", Babu has acquired a job at Monk's Cafe and a room in Jerry's building, with Jerry's help. Babu, however, is arrested and detained. Jerry looks through his mail, which Elaine had kept for him while he was away and jokingly kept from him for a while, and discovers that he was sent Babu's immigration visa renewal papers by accident, which will likely result in Babu being deported. Babu is visited by Jerry and Elaine, who confess, enraging Babu again, but Jerry pacifies Babu by telling him that George's lawyer girlfriend, Cheryl, will help him out. When George and Cheryl fall out, Cheryl spitefully drops the case and Babu is deported to Pakistan, where he vows revenge against Jerry.
Babu returns to the United States in "The Finale, Part 2" to testify against Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. He relays his experiences with the four, growing angrier by the moment and demanding that they be locked away. As the jury decides their verdict, Babu is served soup along with Robin, Mr. Lippman and Poppie by Yev Kassem, the Soup Nazi, and praises Kassem's soup. He is present when the four are convicted.
Name[]
The name Babu Bhatt is a Hindu name, very common in the state of Gujarat in India, in the Brahmin community in the state. An immigrant from Pakistan, as is Babu Bhatt, is therefore unlikely to have this name as there were only about 2 million Hindus in Pakistan during the 1990s. However, India and Pakistan used to be one colony (British India) where Muslims and Hindus were relatively homogeneously dispersed. The writers of Seinfeld likely derived the name for the character from the substantial Gujarati community in the United States, particularly in New York and New Jersey.