Why Not Me?

by Mindy Kaling

  In my heart, I believe that I am a passionate and intuitive cook who could make a five-course meal without even looking at a recipe. I feel I have the flash and charismatic personality of a famous chef, the fiery tenacity of Gordon Ramsay, and the soulful sexuality of Tom Colicchio. The problem is that I lack all basic skill. For instance, my dad had to come over to show me how to turn my oven on. It is sad when your hopes and your abilities do not line up.

  I AM WHAT I AM (PLUS OR MINUS FIVE POUNDS)

  I’m surprised when I remember that, physically, I resemble most women in this country. In the United States, a woman who is 54 and a size 10 is probably more common than virtually any other body type. But somehow when she is on-screen it’s shocking to people, almost as shocking as seeing a married couple on TV where the man and woman are roughly the same age. If I were your doctor or your congresswoman or your sandwich artist, you wouldn’t be shocked to see me, and yet, because I’m an actress, a grown man was amazed that I put jam on my toast.

  Selfishly, I hope that after I write about it here, people will stop asking me so much about my weight. I can just say, “Hey, I talked about this. Go read the chapter in my book.” If writers, even well-intentioned writers, stop focusing on that aspect of my appearance, it will become less exceptional, which would probably be good for body acceptance in women who look like me. Besides, there are so many other physical things about me to fixate on. My breasts are a little uneven. I have a scar in the shape of a swastika on my shoulder. That’s nuts! And hey, I have character flaws too. This book is basically an exposé of them that I wrote myself! Focus on those! They’re hopefully more interesting and funnier!

  I want to say one last thing, and it’s important. Though I am a generally happy person who feels comfortable in my skin, I do beat myself up because I am influenced by a societal pressure to be thin. All the time. I feel it the same way anybody who picks up a magazine and sees Keira Knightley’s elegantly bony shoulder blades poking out of a backless dress does. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen my shoulder blades once. Honestly, I’m dubious that any part of my body could be so sharp and firm as to be described as a “blade.” I feel it when I wake up in the morning and try on every single pair of my jeans and everything looks bad and I just want to go back to sleep. But my secret is: even though I wish I could be thin, and that I could have the ease of lifestyle that I associate with being thin, I don’t wish for it with all of my heart. Because my heart is reserved for way more important things.

  I will leave you with one last piece of advice, which is: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t got it? Flaunt it. ’Cause what are we even doing here if we’re not flaunting it?

  And that, my friends, shall go on my tombstone.

  * * *

  1 I’ve never been to one of these but I have seen The Wolf of Wall Street three times.

  HARVARD LAW SCHOOL CLASS DAY SPEECH

  IN FEBRUARY 2014, I received a letter from the class marshals of Harvard Law School asking me to speak at their Class Day. I know nothing about law except what I’ve seen on my favorite show, Law & Order, so basically I’m a legal genius.

  I was honored to be asked to speak at the school where, as a child, I had fantasized about breaking into their library. Here is what I said.

  Good morning, everyone.

  Graduates, parents, faculty. This is truly a remarkable day. For you, obviously, but also for me. After a life spent obsessing over true crime, the impossible happened: I was asked to speak at the Harvard Law School Class Day and accept an honorary legal degree!

  Isn’t that the American Dream? Me, Mindy Kaling, daughter of first-generation immigrants, accepting an honorary degree from the greatest university in the land … although looking around at this melting pot, there appear to be plenty of children of immigrants here. Hey, good parenting work, immigrants! Anyway, I am no longer just Mindy Kaling, actress and comedian; I’m Mindy Kaling, Esquire, attorney at law.

  (A class marshal runs up to me and whispers in my ear. I listen and frown.)

  Wait. What? Oh, I’m not getting an honorary degree? I’m just meant to give a funny speech and sit down quietly? OK. That hardly seems fair, but fine.

  You’re probably thinking: Mindy Kaling? Why’d they ask her? What does that triple threat know about the law? Sure, she’s gorgeous in a totally down-to-earth kind of way. She’s just a pretty Hollywood starlet. Yes, she was on People magazine’s Most Beautiful People List this year (and also in 2008), but what intelligent remarks could she make about the law? She must be too busy doing shampoo commercials.

  But I’m not too busy. In fact, I’d kill for a great shampoo campaign—if anyone from L’Oréal is watching this, Snapchat me immediately.

  And I’ll have you know, I know a ton about the law. I sue everybody. And excuse me, there’s a burger named after me at Bartley’s that they’ve guaranteed me is going to be there until another tertiary member of the cast of The Office gets their own TV show. And they don’t just name them after anyone. Noted chef Guy Fieri has one. Noted drunk driver Justin Bieber has one. So, pretty good company.

  Look, I get it. On the surface, it would appear that I’m an unconventional choice to speak here today. To be honest, I don’t know much about the law. I graduated in 2001 from Dartmouth College, an academic institution located in lawless rural New Hampshire where, when you arrive, you are given a flask of moonshine and a box of fireworks and simply told: “Go to town.” Only, there is no town; there is only a forest and a row of fraternity houses.

  Actually, little-known fact: Dartmouth has a law school. It’s just one semester and its coursework is entirely centered on how to beat a DUI. But I’m not here to extol the virtues of the Dartmouth Red Bull School of Law. I’m here to talk about you.

  So even though I have no idea why I was asked to speak here today, I prepared for this speech very carefully, the way any good Dartmouth-educated student would: I drank a forty of Jägermeister, then called my dad to see if he could get me out of it. Dad said no. So I tried to hire a college freshman to write it for me in exchange for a $200 gift card to Newbury Comics. Not interested. Finally, seeing that I absolutely had to do this and couldn’t get out of it, I rolled up my sleeves, sat down at my computer, and tried to buy a commencement address off of MovingCommencementSpeeches.com. My credit card was declined, so I wrote this thing myself, and here we are.

  There are many distinguished speakers here today. I am sharing the stage with Preet Bharara, US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

  In 2012, Mr. Bharara was named by Time as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. According to Time, he has battled terrorism, as evidenced by his conviction of the Times Square bomber. He’s crippled international arms dealers and drug traffickers.

  Clearly Harvard wanted you to see the full range of what India can produce. Mr. Bharara fights finance criminals and terrorism. I meet handsome men in cute and unusual ways on a TV show, and next season my character might get a pet puppy. Is one more important than the other? Who can say?

  Dean Martha Minow is here. She has fought for women, families, and refugees, and is a champion for education. She has published over fifteen books, such as Not Only for Myself: Identity, Politics, and Law. Dean Minow and I have a lot in common. I too wrote a book. It’s called Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? You can buy it right around the corner at Urban Outfitters, next to a novelty book called The Stoner’s Delight: Space Cakes, Pot Brownies, and Other Cannabis Creations, and Cat Hats: Sixteen Paper Hats to Put on Your Unsuspecting Kitty.

  But I digress. What I really want to say is that I am honored to be with such a spectacular gathering of very smart and dedicated people. This graduating class has three Rhodes scholars, eleven Fulbright scholars, and four members of the Peace Corps. This group before me is bristling with noble young people, many of you having already started charities and philanthropic organizations. And now, with this diploma in hand, most of you will go on to the noblest purs
uits. Like helping a cable company acquire a telecom company. You will defend BP from birds. You will spend hours arguing that the well water was contaminated before the fracking occurred. One of you will sort out the details of my prenup. A dozen of you will help me with my acrimonious divorce. One of you will fall in love in the process. I’m talking to you, Noah Feldman.1

  And let’s be honest, Harvard Law is the best of all the Harvard graduate programs. The Business School is full of crooks, Divinity School is a bunch of weird virgins, School of Design is for European burnouts, and don’t get me started on the Kennedy School. What kind of degree do you get there? Public policy? Right. You mean master’s in boring me at a dinner party. The Med School is a bunch of nerdy Indians—hey, hey, hey! I can say that. Preet can say that. The rest of you? You are way out of line. How dare you.

  But I digress. Again. I think I am just really excited to be here.

  The real reason I am here is because I am obsessed with justice. Not so much with the law, but with justice. Actually, law is that pesky thing that often gets in the way of justice. I believe in the Clint Eastwood school of law. An eye for an eye? That’s absurd. It solves nothing. You take my eye? I take your life, in a duel, Aaron Burr–style. I don’t want your stupid eye. For what? Yes, duels are the first thing you learn when you enter into my graduate program: The Harvard School of Vengeance.

  But that’s not what I wanted to talk about here. That’s for the reception after.

  The Harvard Law School crest has the word veritas, which means “truth” in Latin. I know this because though I have been known as Mindy all my life, my first name is Vera, which also means truth. That’s true! Too boring to be made up.

  I gesture up at the Harvard Law School crest, which looks like three bunches of asparagus.

  And under these hallowed words? Three bunches of asparagus. Asparagus, the tallest and proudest of vegetables. The pillars of the vegetable kingdom. Like the law.

  OK. That’s not asparagus. I think that’s wheat … ?

  I give a big passive-aggressive sigh and begin rifling through pages of the speech.

  OK, well, that’s three pages of this speech. Nope, nope, that’s a callback to the asparagus. I had a really funny run about hollandaise, that’s out. You know what? This is not going anywhere. I’m going to move on from making sense of your crest, if that’s OK with you.

  Harvard Law has so many illustrious alumni. President Barack Obama attended Harvard Law … or so he claims. Elle Woods went here, from the trenchant documentary Legally Blonde. That’s a very moving film. Dean Minow, you should check it out after you read my book.

  Six of the nine Supreme Court Justices are graduates of Harvard Law. The other three, I don’t know where they went; I think University of Phoenix.

  No, no, no. As we all know, they attended your friendly rival, Yale Law School.

  OK, let’s take a moment to talk about this rivalry.

  I know you have a chip on your shoulder. Yale Law is always number one and you’re always number two. Sometimes Stanford sneaks in there and bumps you down to number three. But let me tell you something, from where I stand, from an outsider’s perspective: you are all nerds. The only difference is that you’re the nerds who are going to make some serious bank. Which is why I’m here today. To marry the best-looking amongst you.

  OK, back to your beautiful diploma, this Harvard Law Degree. It’s not just a piece of a paper. You can do whatever you want now, and this institution will follow you everywhere. If you kill someone? You’re the Harvard Law Murderer. If you’re caught in a lewd act in a public restroom? You’re the Harvard Law Pervert. And then you can represent yourself and you’ll probably get acquitted because … you went to Harvard!

  In fact, the only downside of this degree is later, when you run for Senate, you will have to distance yourself from it to seem more like a regular person. You’ll tuck your flannel shirt into your freshly pressed jeans, and still this institution will haunt you. No matter how many diners you eat at, how many guitar solos you do with Rascal Flatts, you are Harvard to the grave. You won’t be able to buy a pickup truck rusty enough to distance yourself from this place. Mitt Romney preferred to be known as “That Mormon Guy” to distract people from his Harvard past.

  I am an American of Indian origin whose parents were raised in India, met in Africa, and immigrated to America, and now I am the star and creator of my own network television series. The continents traveled, the languages mastered, the standardized tests prepared for and taken, and the cultures navigated are amazing even to me. From Calcutta and Madras to Lagos to Boston to Los Angeles, my family, in two generations, made a dizzying journey, and the destination could only be America. My family’s dreams about a future unfettered by the limitations imposed by “who you know” and dependent only on “what you know” was possible only in this beautiful land. Their romance with this country is more romantic than any romantic comedy I could ever write. And it’s all because they believed that the concept of inherent fairness was still alive in Americans, that here in America they could aspire and succeed, and that their children could aspire and succeed to levels that could not have happened anywhere else in the world.

  The fairness that my family and I have come to take for granted, that all Americans take for granted, is, in many ways, resting on your shoulders to uphold. You represent those who will affect change. And more than any of the others graduating this week from Harvard, what you decide to do with the next five to ten years of your life will affect the rights of people in this country in a fundamental way.

  I’m now at the part of my speech where I am supposed to give you advice. I was wondering what advice I would have to give. Then I thought, You know what? Celebrities give too much advice. And people listen to it too much. In Hollywood, we all think we are sage advice givers and many of us have no education whatsoever. Actresses can become nutritionists, experts in baby care and environmental policy. Actors can become governors or high-ranking officials in religions made up sixty years ago! For two years I have played an obstetrician and gynecologist on a network TV show, and damned if I don’t think I can deliver a baby.

  So I was thinking, Well, then, who should be giving advice? And the answer is: people like you. You’re better educated and you’re going to be out there in the world, and people are going to do what you say, whether you’re good or evil.

  That probably scares you. Because some of you look really young. A couple of you are probably evil. To be honest, it scares me a little too. You look like tweens. This is ridiculous.

  So be the people who give advice to celebrities, please.

  You are entering a profession where, no matter what the crime, you have to defend the alleged perpetrator. Across the campus right now, Harvard Business School graduates are receiving diplomas, and you will need to defend them. For insider trading or possession of narcotics, or maybe both, if The Wolf of Wall Street is to be believed.

  And most of all: it is you who are responsible for the language of justice. For the careful and precise wording in all those boring contracts I sign while I watch Real Housewives. You wrote the Terms and Conditions that I scroll through quickly when I download the update for Candy Crush. Terms and Conditions are the only thing keeping us from The Purge. I don’t read them; I just hit “accept.” iTunes may own my ovaries, for all I know. Meticulous research and careful wording is the gift you give to humanity.

  “Employees Must Wash Their Hands Before Returning to Work.” A lawyer wrote that!

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” A lawyer wrote that!

  “Mindy Kaling may not come within a thousand feet of Professor Noah Feldman.” A lawyer wrote that!

  These are the protections we take for granted. Like a medieval monk, you have analyzed every word, dissected every sentence, evaluated every statement for loopholes. Your dedication to tedium is astounding and admirable. You take words and turn t
hem into the infrastructure that keeps our world stable.

  The seductive Southern lawyers in John Grisham novels get all the glory. Your Noah Feldmans, if you will. But the rest of you form the foundation of our day-to-day lives. It’s backbreaking and often there’s not much glory in it, and, in that way, you will be the quiet heroes for our country.

  However, those of you who are working for Big Pharma and Philip Morris—you will be loud antiheroes, and someone is certain to make an AMC series glamorizing you.

  But basically, either way, you can’t go wrong. I look at all of you and see America’s future: attorneys, corporate lawyers, public prosecutors, judges, politicians, maybe even the president of the United States. Those are all positions of great influence. Understand that one day you will have the power to make a difference. Use it well.

  Thank you, graduates; thank you, faculty, parents, and families; and thank you MovingCommencementSpeeches.com. Congratulations.

  * * *

  1 To research this speech, I asked some law students for some prevailing campus-wide gossip. More than one person told me that all of the female law students were obsessed with Noah Feldman, a dashing professor who specialized in constitutional studies and who was also a recent divorcé. Dubious, I Googled him, and man, Noah Feldman is handsome. Believe the hype!

  4 A.M. WORRIES

  I SHOULD START OFF by saying that I am one of the only television writers I know who is not depressed. I’m not saying this to brag. God knows I have my own issues. For instance, I’m almost certain I suffer from undiagnosed cases of paranoia, irrational snacking, abrupt rage, and borderline clinical-level superficiality. I’m just bringing it up because depression is something that I’ve come to accept from my creative community and I realize that’s probably alien to most people. I don’t know why the funniest people I know are also depressed. In my mind I’ve romanticized it as the tragic price you pay to be gifted, like Mozart dying at thirty-five. It’s sad that so many of my friends suffer this way.