I am not Mindy Kaling, I am not Kelly Kapoor.

But I’ve been wondering lately if I am and I just don’t know it yet.

I hear it a lot. To the point that I’ve concluded that the people who tell me must feel so relieved that an Indian-American actress became mainstream enough that they could turn to me and say, with some sense of authority:

“Have you ever seen The Office? You totally remind me of Kelly Kapoor, Mindy Kaling’s character….”

Because I’m not tall, green-eyed, pageant-ready and ever-elegant. (Though I am luxuriously-lashed.) Nor am I a mild-mannered, British, soccer-playing, television lover of John Stamos. (Though I can make “full vegetarian dinner”.) Nor am I Kal Penn. (Because I’m a girl. And, also, because I’m not Kal Penn.)

But Mindy Kaling is funny. And short. Spunky and sarcastic and smart. She has a constant look on her face when she’s in character that says, “Um, what the fuck?” in a way few others can master. And she’s decidedly girl next door.

So, I realized Mindy Kaling was the next generation of an old refrain…

“Have you seen Margaret Cho’s stand-up? She reminds me of you, only you’re not so vulgar.”

“Have you seen Monsoon Wedding? The story reminded me of you, only you’re not part of a wholly dysfunctional extended family.”

“Have you seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? The dad in that movie totally reminds me of your dad.” (Although, in the defense of all those people, my dad actually used to pick us up in middle school and play Carnatic music in the car on the way home and make my friends guess the instruments.)

…until I got no less than 6 emails last week from inside and outside the diaspora about the November 2nd Diwali episode of The Office all with some mention of the likeness in the greeting:

MICHAEL URGES THE ENTIRE OFFICE TO SUPPORT DIVERSITY BY CELEBRATING DIWALI, THE HINDU FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS — SCRIPT WRITTEN BY SERIES STAR MINDY KALING — Michael (Steve Carell) encourages the entire Scranton branch to support Kelly (Mindy Kaling) and attend a local celebration of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. As Ryan ( B.J. Novak) nervously faces Kelly’s family at the event, Michael, new girlfriend Carol, and the staff sample a range of Indian culture and cuisine. Meanwhile, Andy (Ed Helms) convinces Jim (John Krasinski) to turn a late night of work into a drinking game.

One of the emails, from an Indian friend, said: “Something about Mindy Kaling reminds me of you.”

And once a fellow Indian mentions it, everything changes. It takes on tremendous legitimacy, like Mindy Kaling and I were somehow long-lost twins and I was the only one who didn’t know it.

Suddenly, I found myself poking around cubicles in my office, casually asking: “Do you watch The Office? Do I remind you of Mindy Kaling?”

“No,” my co-workers replied, nervously laughing and mildly horrified at the question, like they were being being given a pop quiz on diversity in the workplace, with HumanResources ready to jump out from behind a water cooler with a stun gun and a force them into workshop hell if they failed.

Which when you think about it — if i was The Office NARC staging an HR sting operation — is a very Kelly Kapoor kind of thing for me to do.