In late November 2019, as her once promising 2020 presidential campaign was faltering, Kamala Harris appeared in a cooking video with the actress and comedian Mindy Kaling. A week later, Ms. Harris quit the race.
On Wednesday, Ms. Kaling will trade a kitchen for a stage as she hosts the third night of Ms. Harris’s nominating convention in Chicago.
Ms. Kaling is the third of four boldfaced names to fill the role, which entails delivering remarks and introducing speakers. The actor Tony Goldwyn was Monday night’s host; Ana Navarro, a Republican commentator, was the emcee on Tuesday; and the actress Kerry Washington will do the job on Thursday.
Ms. Kaling is best known for her roles as Kelly Kapoor, a vain and ditsy employee on “The Office,” and Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist, on “The Mindy Project,” which Ms. Kaling wrote and produced.
One of the most prominent Indian women in Hollywood, Ms. Kaling often writes and plays characters who contend with what it’s like to be Indian American and the daughter of immigrants, a heritage and background she shares with Ms. Harris.
Ms. Kaling’s parents hail from the same region in the south of India as Ms. Harris’s mother, who moved to the United States to attend college at 19. In the 2019 YouTube video supporting Ms. Harris’s presidential campaign, Ms. Kaling and Ms. Harris prepare masala dosa, a South Indian dish of flatbread and potato curry, and discuss growing up in Indian American households.
“I find that wherever I go and I see Indian people — at the supermarket, on the street — everyone’s like, ‘You know Kamala Harris is Indian, right?’” Ms. Kaling told Ms. Harris. “It’s like our thing we’re so excited about, to have you running for president.”
The video, which has been watched more than 6.5 million times, was filmed in Ms. Kaling’s kitchen. The two women establish a casual and playful rapport quickly. Ms. Harris, who was then a U.S. senator from California, insisted that Ms. Kaling address her as Kamala, rather than Senator Harris. Ms. Kaling protests, saying her Indian parents might see that as a sign of disrespect — and proceeds to call her “Senator Harris” for the duration of the video.
As they cooked, Ms. Kaling and Ms. Harris traded stories about visiting family in India and sneaking meals of meat and eggs with rebellious family members — a transgression in a region that is largely Hindu and vegetarian that Ms. Harris said was “like a prank.”
The short video resurfaced on social media in the last several weeks along with a series of five other YouTube clips, all from 2019, called “Cooking with Kamala.” Ms. Harris loves to cook, something that has come up frequently during the convention this week, and Ms. Kaling praised her knife skills while watching Ms. Harris finely chop a red onion.
“Senator Harris, I say this with respect, you’re kind of a show-off,” Ms. Kaling said.
A grinning Ms. Harris refrained from contradicting the observation.
Ms. Kaling has not been outspoken about her political views for most of her Hollywood career. Her character on “The Mindy Project” was conservative, which gave the writer of one 2013 Salon article the impression that Ms. Kaling was, too. In a post on X, Ms. Kaling clarified that she was not, saying it was “so weird and funny” to assume she shared politics with her onscreen character.
After her kitchen video with Ms. Harris, Ms. Kaling started donating to Democratic candidates, campaign finance records show. Ms. Kaling supported President Biden’s 2020 general campaign, but only after he selected Ms. Harris as his running mate. She gave $100,000 to a PAC supporting Mr. Biden, and contributed $5,600, the maximum allowed under campaign finance law, to the Biden campaign.
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