Those who have seen Netflix’s latest coming-of-age comedy, Never Have I Ever, may be wondering how much of it is based on creator Mindy Kaling’s childhood. So…is Netflix’s Never Have I Ever based on Mindy Kaling’s life? Well, the answer is complicated.
Never Have I Ever, which premiered on April 27, follows the life of Devi Vishwakumar, a 15-year-old Indian-American girl from Sherman Oaks, California, who’s unpopular as one can expect from a teen rom com. The 10-episode series starts with Devi’s return to high school after her father dies of a heart attack, which led her to be paralyzed from the waist down due to the emotional trauma of the incident. The show explores Devi’s relationship with her Indian-American identity, her mother and her best friends. Oh, and her relationship with her crush, Paxton Hall-Yoshida, a.k.a. the hottest guy in school.
As one of the creators of the show (along with her The Mindy Show screenwriter Lang Fisher), fans have wondered if Never Have I Ever is based on true stories from Kaling’s childhood. In April interview with The Hindu, Kaling explained that the show is not based on any real stories from her life, though she was inspired by her childhood in the ’90s and ’80s for the feel and themes of the series.
“A lot of descriptions of the show have been that it’s based on my childhood or is autobiographical, but I think it’s definitely not based on my childhood but it is in the spirit of my childhood, because I grew up in the ’80s and the ’90s, and the show is based in 2019,” she said.
Kaling continued, “But one of the things about me as a kid is that I was a shy nerd, but did not have the confidence Devi has; I think to be the star of the show and to hold down an entire production like this, the character has to have a lot of confidence. Even though she has all these problems with how she looks and her social life and everything, we wanted her to have an underlying cheerfulness and a resilience I don’t think I had as a kid.”
In a February interview with Variety, Kaling explained that, while the show is fictionalized, she drew from the issues that many first-generation Indian-American teenagers experience.
“We see a certain kind of Indian actor all the time in auditions…Our show is about a Tamil Indian girl, and typically they’re South Indians and they’re dark-skinned,” she said at the time. “I felt lucky to be able to do a show about an Indian nerd who’s also badly behaved, to show that because I’m deeply familiar with it. [Netflix VP] Bela [Bajari] was also interested in seeing Indian characters who are not all like Princess Jasmine.”
Kaling also explained that she wanted to show a different side to the “nerds” that are often represented in media. “Nerds are not only the wallflowers and the quiet ones,” she said. “We’re ambitious, we have obnoxious personalities sometimes, we want to have sex and dreams like all the other kids.”
While Never Have I Ever isn’t based on Kaling’s life (sorry, Mindy fans), the show is still worth a watch for a funny and charming take on an American family we haven’t seen often (or at all) in a coming-of-age comedy.