On expressing anger at work
There were a lot of times when it would flare up when I was at The Office, because that was when I was so green, too, that I didn’t understand the hierarchical nature of a writers room. I also had a big chip on my shoulder because I was at least the first or the only woman and for a while, the only minority full-time writer that was there. It would flare up a lot.
The good news is that my boss there and my mentor was this very forgiving guy, Greg Daniels … but he was someone who is the opposite. He’s very methodical and kind and thoughtful. And I think he kind of thought it was his responsibility to be patient with me about those things.
That’s actually something that now, when I have so many younger writers, many of whom are minorities or young women, I have really been confronted with, OK, we have to kind of do what Greg did, because my natural inclination is if someone is fighting with me and I’m their boss is to quell it by screaming. I really try to remember what Greg did and try to replicate that as much as I can.
On why she likes to write jokes about prejudices within minority groups, such as Indian Hindus and Indian Muslims
I find it funny, because to the average white American, we’re probably the same. To me, it’s really a narcissism of small differences to the average American person looking at someone who is dark-skinned, Indian Hindu person and a dark-skinned, Indian Muslim person.
I don’t think anyone thinks there’s a big difference between me and Aziz Ansari. He is, I think, atheist, but his family is Muslim, and his dad grew up in the same town my dad grew up in, in south India, but my dad’s Hindu. So there’s this giant chasm for people who are Indian about our different families. But to the outside person, “They’re both Indian, Aziz and Mindy. Are they related to each other? Probably.”
I find that comical. … We’ve actually talked about it, too. I think when he started on Parks and Rec and I had been on The Office, we got so many tweets where people said, “Oh, they should be together! They should date!” And it was like, why? Because we’re the only two Indian people on NBC? So I think it’s funny when our communities try to find lots of different reasons why we’re so, so different when a majority of probably this country thinks we’re identical.
- Jazz on the Water Cruises
- Life Luxe Experience
- The Florida Smooth Jazz Weekend
- Christian McBride’s New Jawn
- Mallorca Smooth Jazz Festival
On why she changed her name when she started doing stand-up
I shortened my name, because emcees for these comedy shows would have trouble pronouncing it, and then they’d make a joke about my last name. My real name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam, and it’s a South Indian name and it’s a long name. As a performer, these comedians would just butcher it and then be like, “I don’t know what it is! Just this girl, Mindy.” And so I would go do stand-up nights, and I already felt like a huge distance from the audience — just as a new comedian, but then an even more distance because it had been made so clear that I was ethnic.
When you do comedy — everyone from Albert Brooks, Woody Allen — these are all comedians who changed their names, and I felt it was the easiest thing for me to do, and ultimately it was really beneficial to do it. It was something that I had a lot of mixed feelings about. But my parents didn’t mind. I talked to them about it. And then I ended up shortening it. It’s bittersweet, but I have to say, it was such a help to my career to have a name that people could pronounce.
On how having a child helped her reconnect with her memories of her own mother, who died of cancer in 2012
Having a kid is great, because I now see my mother as a young mother
I was scared for years that that would be the only way that I remember my mother, which was sick, and tired, and bedridden. But I will say that in having some distance from the time that she’s died, and particularly by having a daughter, I have been able to let that part of her lifekind of recess in my memory, and more of her as when I was a teenager — and how funny and vibrant she was when she was in her 40s and 50s — that now has taken over much more of my imagination.
But having a kid is great, because I now see my mother as a young mother, because I see her through my daughter’s eyes of me, and so that’s been really helpful, because I can ask questions about my mom to my father, about her as a young mother, and I’m learning so much more about her, which is great.
