NRI PROFILE
Early Life
Mindy Kaling was born in
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
to father Avu Chokalingam, an
architect, and mother Swati
Chokalingam, an obstetrician/
gynecologist (OB/GYN).
Kaling’s parents are from
India, and met while working at
the same hospital in Nigeria.
Her father, of Tamil heritage,
was overseeing the building
of a wing of the hospital, and
her mother, a Bengali, was
working as an OB/GYN. The
family immigrated to the United
States in 1979, the same year
Kaling was born. Kaling’s
mother died of pancreatic
cancer in 2012. Kaling has one
sibling, a brother, Vijay Jojo
Chokal-Ingam, who works as
an educational consultant.
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From 2005 to 2012, she
played Kelly Kapoor in the
NBC sitcom The Office.
In addition to acting in it,
she was a writer, executive
producer, and director. For
her work on the series,
she received a Primetime
Emmy Award nomination
for Outstanding Writing in a
Comedy Series in 2010. and a Funeral (2019). Kaling’s
film career includes voice
work in Despicable Me (2010),
Wreck It Ralph (2012), and
Inside Out (2015). She had
starring roles in the comedy
The Night Before (2015), the
fantasy adventure A Wrinkle
in Time, the heist comedy
Ocean’s 8 (both 2018), and the
comedy Late Night (2019).
Kaling gained wider
attention for creating, writing,
producing and starring in the
Fox/Hulu comedy series The
Mindy Project (2012–2017).
She was also the co-creator,
writer, and producer of the
NBC sitcom Champions
(2018) and the Hulu
miniseries Four Weddings In addition to her work in film
and television, Kaling has
written two New York Times
best-selling memoirs, titled Is
Everyone Hanging Out Without
Me? (And Other Concerns)
(2011) and Why Not Me?
(2015).
WWW.WISHESH.NET | AUGUST 2019
Kaling has said she has never
been called Vera, her first
name, but has been referred to
as Mindy since her mother was
pregnant with her while her
parents were living in Nigeria.
They were already planning
to move to the United States
and wanted, Kaling said, a
“cute American name” for their
daughter, and liked the name
Mindy from the TV show Mork
& Mindy. The name Vera is,
according to Kaling, the name
of the “incarnation of a Hindu
goddess.”
Kaling graduated from
Buckingham Browne &
Nichols, a private school in
Cambridge, in 1997. The
following year, she entered
Dartmouth College, where