I’m busy having fun: Mindy Kaling - Hindustan Times
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I’m busy having fun: Mindy Kaling

Hindustan Times | By
Oct 12, 2013 04:56 PM IST

And Mindy Kaling deserves it. From a television writer to the star of her own show, the Indian-origin comedian is hot news

Her Real name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam. She’s half-Tamil, half-Bengali, born in the US to parents who moved from Nigeria. She’s more than a little dark. She’s more than a little chubby. She’s no Miss America 2013. Mindy Kaling could have settled into a desk job somewhere, watching Indian actors play bit parts and token brown persons in film and TV.

Instead, she decided she was too awesome to go unnoticed and turned to TV comedy. As a writer on the American version of The Office (the only woman among a team of eight), she proved to be so good, they gave her an on-screen role: the gloriously ditzy Kelly Kapoor. And even before the series ended, Kaling left to create and star in The Mindy Project, making her the first Indian headliner of a US TV show.

There are no Indian jokes on The Mindy Project. Her character the obstetrician/gynaecologist Dr Mindy Lahiri is not there for call-centre punchlines, head-nods or cracks about curry. Instead Lahiri is romance-obsessed, vain, shallow, klutzy, whiny, dramatic and altogether hilarious: “If my life’s gonna be a mess, it might as well be a hot mess, right?” Now in its second season in America, The Mindy Project has made Kaling famous, given her an A-list life (Lena Dunham is a bestie, James Franco is a co-star, designer bags are arm candy!) and turned her supremely funny book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) into a bestseller.

Check him up. Check him out: Kaling’s character can choose between Dr Danny Castellano or Dr Jeremy Reed
Check him up. Check him out: Kaling’s character can choose between Dr Danny Castellano or Dr Jeremy Reed
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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Rachel Lopez is a a writer and editor with the Hindustan Times. She has worked with the Times Group, Time Out and Vogue and has a special interest in city history, culture, etymology and internet and society.

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