Ever since Mindy Kaling’s brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, made the news last week when he announced that he had gotten into medical school by applying as an African-American, the actress has been distancing herself.
Last week, in fact, she denied any knowledge of her brother’s applications as “JoJo,” releasing a statement that said she was “not aware of his decision to apply to medical school under a different name and race.”
But Chokal-Ingam says that is untrue.
I told my sister about it at the time, my younger cousins were aware too – they of course kept it from my parents. Everyone thought it was a joke. They honestly thought, ‘Here’s Vijay the college frat boy pulling some sort of prank and it’s all going to unravel.’
He went on to say that the current rift between the siblings started when he told Kaling that he was planning on going public with his story. She had discouraged him, worrying that his story would shame their family, and Chokal-Ingam even claims that some of her representatives have been quietly suggesting that he suffers from mental instability in an attempt to discredit him.
“It’s unfortunate that my sister has gone to such dramatic lengths to stop me from writing this article,” he said. “I have never been diagnosed with any form of mental illness.”
Still, he hopes that he can patch up his relationship with his sister.
“We’re like any two siblings. We love each other to death sometimes, sometimes we hate each other. Sometimes we’re somewhere in between. I love my sister to death,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that she’s trying to prevent me from releasing this story but you know I didn’t drag her into it and I don’t apologize for what I did.”