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Mindy Lahiri
Mindy Lahiri
Age 31
Gender Female
Occupation Obstetrician/Gynecologist
Family Rishi Lahiri (Younger Brother)
First Appearance Pilot
Actor Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kuhel Lahiri is the main character of The Mindy Project. Mindy is a OB/GYN at the practice of Shulman's Women's Health Associates, where she works with Dr. Danny Castellano and Dr. Jeremy Reed .  A romantic, she is dedicated to looking for the love of her life in the big city and striking the perfect balance between work, friends, and love.

Biography

Early Life and Background

Mindy Lahiri was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts.  She is the daughter of two Indian immigrants, making her a second-generation Indian-American.  She has a younger brother, Rishi, who is younger than her by 11 years.  She dotes upon him and is currently paying his tuition at Stanford University.

Mindy graduated from Princeton University in 2002, where she met her best friend, Gwen Grandy .  She attended medical school at Columbia University in the city of New York.  She later moved to New York City, where she did her residency with both Dr. Danny Castellano and Dr. Jeremy Reed under the supervision of Dr. Marc Shulman.  After residency, she was hired by Dr. Shulman to work at the clinic of Shulman & Associates.

Career

As a doctor, Mindy takes her job very seriously, despite her light-hearted demeanor.  She works hard to maintain her practice and to keep her patients happy.  She is recommended to patients by other doctors, indicating that she is good at what she does.  Her bedside manner as a doctor is warm, friendly, and efficient.  For the most part, she instills trust in her patients.

Mindy also has an ambitious streak and a desire for advancement.  She often competes with Danny Castellano for leadership roles, such as the hiring of new staff or the promotion of business, and is sometimes forced to strongly assert herself in order to get her male counterparts to listen to her.  In spite of all this, Mindy is a team player and prefers collaborative efforts.  She is not one to shirk her duties and follows them conscientously, even if that does not always appear to be the case.  She is constantly thinking of ways to forward the practice, such as the addition of a pre-natal resource center to the clinic, making personal calls to patients, or creating groupons for HPV vaccinations.

Although she occasionally butts heads with Danny and Jeremy on how to run the practice, she is skilled at forming persuasive arguments and bringing them around to her side.  An example of this was when the midwives started stealing patients from the practice after Dr. Shulman's retirement; it was only after Mindy came back to the office and appealed to the women on a personal level that they returned.  She understood that the key factor for their patients was not money, but trust in a doctor to see their pregnancy through safely and with genuine caring.  It is her intuitive understanding of personal reasons blended with her medical knowlege that makes her such a valuable asset to the clinic.

Personality

Mindy is warm, friendly, confident, bubbly, and vivacious.  She is a romantic at heart with a great sense of humor.  She is also very feminine, with a love for fashion, decor, celebrities, and romantic comedies.  People in general fascinate her; she enjoys connecting with people on a personal level and is quite extroverted.  Although she is always frank and occasionally blunt, she usually means well, and her engaging demeanor usually allows others to forgive her any faux pas.  Her mind is very analytical, and she uses it to critique everything from work to relationships to food.  However, she tempers her critical qualities with warm friendliness, making her very personable. She is also unbelieveably shallow, with an unhealthy preoccupation with the activities of celebrities.

Her greatest desire is to fall madly in love, get married, and have children.  She has a deep, abiding respect for the family unit and really wants to have one of her own:

"I do want to have kids, four of them: Jaden, Madison, Brie, and the little one is Piper."
--Mindy to Danny, Season 1 "Danny Castellano is My Gynecologist."

She has a very specific idea of the man she would like to marry: he should be handsome, wealthy, make her breakfast sandwiches, and be exactly seven inches taller than her.  However, her relationships usually do not make it very far.  Many of them are very casual or don't make it past the first few dates.  Her longer relationships have ended poorly, most notable of which was the defection of ex-boyfriend Tom McDougall for the Serbian Bagel Girl.  After trashing Tom's wedding, Mindy decided she needed to re-evaluate her life choices.  Her goal is to really grow as a person, finding the perfect balance between work, friends, and love as she searches for the love of her life.  In pursuit of this goal, she remains positive and optimistic.  She often discusses her personal life with her co-workers, especially Danny Castellano , asking them for their opinions and advice.  And while she sometimes expresses a desire to marry rich and leave the workforce, her actions indicate she is far too driven to ever be happy as a homemaker.

Mindy is very aware of her looks and place a great deal of value on them.  She is self-conscious about her body image and takes great pains to accentuate her greatest assets.  She also worries about how others perceive her and will sometimes exaggerate the truth to create a better perception of herself, such as when she goes to a club with all of her co-workers:

"Oh, man, the guys here are soo aggressive."
--Mindy to Betsy after a failed conversation with a guy, Season 1 "In the Club."

Or when she was sitting for her gynecological appointment with Danny and didn't want him to know how little she worked out:

"I do the elliptical 45 minutes, 4 times a week.  ...30 minutes, 3 times a week.  ...There is a cluster of ellipticals at my gym.  ....I plan on joining a gym near my house, okay?!"
"...Sedentary."
"That's rude."
--Mindy and Danny, Season 1 "Danny Castellano is My Gynecologist."

She does not like to be judged and is hurt when she thinks others, especially people she respects, are judging her unfavorably.  This often causes her to lash out verbally and she usually attacks the other person at their weakest emotional spot.  However, she is usually quick to forgive and forget and does not hold personal grudges for long.  She can also be very generous and is always willing to lend a helping hand when her friends need it.

Emotionally, Mindy is very open and available.  In relationships, she is tender, sweet, and forthright, as well as open to possibility.  She has no trouble expressing her vulnerabilities and is a trusting individual.  She cares deeply about her friends and believes the best in people, even when life has shown her otherwise.  And although she is not always lucky when it comes to love, she is usually extremely lucky when it comes to her choice of friends.

Relationships

Gwen Grandy

Mindy and Gwen met in college and they have been best friends ever since, at time their friendship was tested but at the end they always made up and put the mess behind them.

Jeremy Reed

She had sex with him and "bedroom dates" in the beginning of season 1 but towards the end of the season it is clear that they are just friends.

Casey Peerson

Mindy first meets Casey on the subway in episode 19 of season 1 titled "My Cool Christian Boyfriend". His large box prevented Mindy from getting off at her stop, and what began as an antagonistic exchange turned into flirtation. When Mindy finds out that Casey is a Lutheran Minister she visits his church with Danny and becomes intensely attracted to him due to his sermon. Their relationship solidifies in episode 21 Santa Fe after Mindy confront's her ex Josh at his rehab center. At one point Mindy considers converting to Christianity, but ultimately decides to stay an agnostic Hindu. 

When Casey first gets assigned to go to Haiti, Mindy breaks up with him. This results in Casey getting into a drunken brawl with her ex Tom. They re-kindle and Mindy decides to go to Haiti with Casey. After some vacillation, season 1 ends with Mindy leaving with Casey for Haiti in "Take Me With You". 

Danny Castellano

Mindy and Danny are friends in the workplace. At first, they hate each other, even though they have a couple of friendly interactions. As the first season progresses, Danny and Mindy became closer, and they eventually became friends. Towards the end of the season, it is implied that Danny has a crush on Mindy when they almost kiss in the season finale. When the second season starts, it is shown that Mindy and Danny wrote letters to each other when Mindy and Casey were in Haiti. Danny and Mindy rekindle their friendship. In You've Got Sext, it is clear that Danny has feelings for Mindy when he looks unhappy that Cliff was the guy Mindy was interested in, and not him. In Christmas Party Sex Trap, when Danny cheers her up by dancing to one of Mindy's favorite songs, they almost kiss until they are interrupted by Jeremy and Peter. This is the first time that it's implied that Mindy may have feelings for Danny. Finally, in The Desert, during turbulence, Danny gets scared and holds onto the seat next to him to hold Mindy's hand, but then realizes she is in the back of the plane, getting him tonic water. He remembers how they held onto each other hands' before when turbulence was happening. After the turbulence, Danny goes to the back of the plane, and kisses Mindy. At first, Mindy is shocked and surprised to see Danny kiss her, but then she puts her arms around him and they kiss passionately. They date shortly after that but then break up. Mindy dates more people until Danny realizes he loves Mindy and they meet at the Empire State Building for a romantic reunion. They are dating as of season 3. 

Morgan Tookers

Mindy hired Morgan after he was the one most effective in treating her broken nose. He has repeatedly shown himself to be very protective of Mindy, including having tackled and knocked out an intern when he thought she was being attacked.

Betsy Putch

Shauna Dicario

Shauna used to work for the Shulman and Associates practice. Last seen in Hooking Up is hard. Current whereabouts is unknown.

Tom McDougall

Brendan Deslaurier

Brendan and his Brother Duncan are the midwives who's business is on the fifth floor of the building where Shulman and Associates is. They are famous for stealing patients and are constantly being made fun of for not being real doctors. In season 1 (Episode 12 - Hooking Up Is Hard), Mindy chose Brendan as the perfect target for her one night stand mission. She chose him because she did not see a future with him and she did not respect him; these are all things that are required for a one night stand partner according to Jeremy.

Trivia

  • Mindy thinks that recycling makes America look poor.
  • Mindy Lahiri has her own twitter account!
  • Mindy used to have a Boston accent and worked hard to get rid of it.
  • Mindy can rap.  She did one when she was running for 9th grade treasurer.
  • She is near-sighted, far-sighted, has astigmatism, pre-cataracts, and is legally blind in Alaska and Hawaii.
  • Mindy is prone to stress-barfing.
  • Mindy does not cook.
  • She usually spends Thanksgiving with Gwen Grandy and her family in Greenwich, CT.  Every few years during this time, she and Gwen get into a fight.
  • In her will, Mindy leaves all her money to Tina Fey because she "thinks she'll spend the money in interesting and responsible ways."
  • Mindy would like her children and grandchildren to be socialites.
  • Mindy would like to have 4 children and has already picked the name for them, Jaden, Madisen, Brie and Piper
  • Mindy's favorite character from "The Princess Bride" is Inigo Montoya.
  • Some of the shows Mindy watches are Cheers, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men.
  • Mindy only likes eating at chain restaurants because of the service.
  • Mindy does not like cats.
  • She believes that "best friend" is a tier, not a person.
  • She was featured in her college admissions brochure holding a test tube.
  • Mindy enjoys narrating events to her nearby friends like she's in a movie.
  • Mindy adores Christmas.
  • Mindy is a huge "Harry Potter" fan.  She once compared Danny to Voldemort and asked Jeremy if Draco Malfoy was a good option for a one night stand.
  • She thinks it's strange to see someone you know on the subway and not stand next to them.
  • Mindy is afraid of being murdered by a serial killer and sleeps with a mask over her head in the doctor's lounge.  She sleeps with a knife under her pillow and slips a knife in her glove when she goes on dates.
  • She keeps a pen in her bed for when she needs to write things down before falling asleep.
  • Mindy has a 12-year-old cousin named Shreev.
  • She does not like tapas.
  • Mindy is a basketball fan, especially of the NY Knicks and the Suns.
  • Mindy is a fan of Beyonce, Kate Middleton, and Gweneth Paltrow.
  • She also likes Mark Darcy, Joe Fox, Chris Pine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and James Franco.
  • Mindy's patients occasionally name their babies after her in middle name homage.
  • Mindy occasionally sleep-shops with her memorized credit card number.
  • She passed out in the food drive box at the annual Christmas Party one year.
  • Mindy is not very good at saying no and came home with a samurai sword from the flea market.  She also bailed her mugger out of jail and bought him a sports coat to go on interviews.
  • Her apartment was the site of a garment fire in 1912.
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