Mindy Kaling - Kind of Hindu

Text copyright 2020 by Mindy Kaling

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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eISBN: 9781542017176

Cover photo by Mike Rosenthal

Cover design by Liz Casal

Illustrations by Abbey Lossing

All photos courtesy of the author

Masala Mindy

S ometimes when I meet people who have seen The Office , they assume that, like Kelly Kapoor, I am only involved in my Indian heritage to the degree that it is fun and convenient. This assumption is pretty much correct. Culturally and religiously, I live my life like a secular American, except when Im out with friends at an Indian restaurant and I feel uniquely qualified to order our meal. I might say knowingly, The chicken makhani from here isnt good, but the mango lassi is spectacular. Im so good at it, I should probably have my own Netflix show about ordering Indian food, with fabulous Hollywood friends like Jennifer Garner and Lin-Manuel Miranda guest starring in each episode. Masala Mindy , it would be called. Huge hit, twenty seasons, the Queer Eye guys become close family friends.

Then I had a kid, which changed everything. I felt I needed to think about my culture in a larger way, since now, technically, it was our culture. I had to grapple with questions I could ignore when it was just me, like: How Indian do I want my daughter to be? Should I start being more Indian really quick, like right now, so I can trick her into believing this has always been my deal? Or should I accept the extent of her Indian-ness will be like mine? I panicked. Without a faith structure in our home, what if she adopted some random religious identity in an effort to find spiritual guidance? I pictured a brown-skinned teenage girl wandering around Forever 21 wearing a crop top and a decorative cross necklace talking about her love of Jesus Christbecause thats what Justin and Hailey Bieber did. I hated this thought. Even if I dont exactly care if my daughter is Hindu, I definitely dont want her to be some other religion. So, I looked down at my sleeping eight-month-old baby and I whispered, You will not be a member of the Hillsong Church!

Lets back up a little bit.

I am kind of Hindu. Or, more accurately, when I was growing up in Massachusetts in the 1980s and 90s, I was told that I was Hindu. This knowledge was a positive thing, largely because it helped me to answer questions about ethnicity on forms. What it meant essentially was that I attended pujas (Indian religious gatherings/ceremonies) once or twice a year, which always felt more cultural than religious. For my family, a puja was an opportunity to dress up in our colorful Indian clothes we never got to wear and see the larger Indian community we loved gossiping about. We found out who got into Ivy League colleges and who got fat. Thats what pujas were all about. The ceremony itself is held to celebrate various important life events like a new baby, a wedding, even a new business venture. Its performed by a Hindu priest in ancient Sanskrit, so no one really seems to understand what is going on anyway.

When I moved to Los Angeles to work on The Office , the yearly Hindu ceremonies mostly stopped for me. I would pray only when I wanted something really badly. I chose to pray to Ganesha and Lakshmi before I took my drivers ed test or when I had to get on a plane. I was a Santa Claus Hindu.

By the time I gave birth to Katherine, whom I call Kit, I was solidly secular, and I hadnt thought about her faith at all. Its weird thinking about little babies and their religionsshe didnt even know how to walk yet, and all of a sudden I had to make some big decisions about what higher power she would believe in.

It wasnt until her godfather, television and films B.J. Novak, asked me about what a godfather was actually supposed to do that I thought about offloading the religious questions onto somebody else. Id picked a godfather for the same reason everyone does: because it seems like the kind of wholesome thing really nice white parents would do on an ABC Family show. You know, the kind of family who plays touch football after dinner on Thanksgiving and dances to R&B while doing the dishes.

I also wanted someone to take Kit to Dodgers games and give her an outlet to complain about meand then back-channel whatever they heard to me later. But I guess thats not what a godparent is really for. After I looked it up, I found out that theyre technically supposed to help continue your childs Christian faith in case you die. B.J. is Jewish, and I am Hindu, so the whole thing made no sense at all. Then B.J. asked a great question: What would godparenting responsibilities mean in terms of Kits Hinduism? B.J., for example, is more than Kind of Jewish. Like, when he inevitably makes me the godparent to his child, it would definitely be my responsibility to teach that kid some Judaism. I pray that doesnt happen for many reasons, but if it did, it would probably make a good sitcom.

So, I started thinking more about my religion, and suddenly, being Kind of Hindu seemed Kind of Lame. Like, maybe I should be more interested in the religion and culture of the people I descended from? Sure, I can tolerate the spicy food. I nod knowingly when I hear Ravi Shankars sitar solo on Beatles albums. And... thats about it. B.J. agreed nonjudgmentally as I explained this to him, before observing, So you dont really know what youre talking about.

Naturally, I quickly accepted responsibility and promised to do better for myself and my child.

No, Im just kidding. I obviously blamed my parents.

My mom and dad are Indian, but met while working in Lagos, Nigeria. Although they had their home country in common, they were from completely different parts of India: my dad is Tamil from Madras (Or Chennai? Which am I supposed to call it? Am I offending someone?), and my mom is Bengali from Calcutta (Or is it Kolkata? India, help me out here with these names!). Those are completely different regions with different languages and completely different traditions. Dad was raised as a strict vegetarian, and then, in college, he tried chicken and kind of liked it, although, out of guilt, he only ate it rarely. His parents and five siblings had happy and successful arranged marriages, as was the tradition in his region. My mom, on the other hand, was raised eating fish, chicken, lamb, and shrimpbasically anything that crawled, as she used to joke. ( But not monkey brains. Come on, Indiana Jones. You are racist. You dont deserve to have Indian in your first name.)

Anyway, my parents met in Africa, liked each other, and got married. But the only language they had in common was English. Even the way they practiced Hinduism was completely different. Though both Hindu, they had separate festivals, holidays, and rituals. So when I was growing up, we didnt have one unified set of rules. We would eat vegetarian Tamil food for breakfast (my dads culture), but then have spicy fish and shrimp curry for dinner (my moms Bengali roots) and end the meal with Carvel ice cream cake (pure 1980s suburban Boston). We plucked what worked for us from both of their experiences and then adopted American culture and traditions that seemed fun and festive too. Like I said, its their fault.