Actor-creator Mindy Kaling has all the reasons to happy.?Her?latest show Never Have I Ever is number one on Netflix.
The show gave her a chance to reflect on her own Indian-ness while putting fellow nerds from minority communities, the typical side characters in American shows, in front and center.?
The Netflix show revolves around an academically competitive but hot-headed teenager Devi, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, trying to catch the eye of the school heartthrob while secretly grieving the sudden death of her father.?
¡°My coming to terms with my Indian-ness is a big part of the show. I was born in the US, raised in a pretty white area, without speaking any Indian languages, so culturally I always felt I straddled the lines of two cultures,¡± Kaling told PTI in an email interview.?
"So much of Devi's relationship with her faith is inspired by my relationship with Hinduism. I consider myself Hindu, but I also feel insecure about my understanding of my own religion," she said, adding that the birth of her daughter made her "look at my faith and culture in a new way". "... because I really want her to identify as Indian, and that's kind of up to me,¡± Kaling said about showing the cultural and generational conflict in the show through a gentle gaze.
Kaling, 40 confessed that she had the most fun writing the mother-daughter scenes.