It’s funny, I had a slightly different upbringing than my other friends and classmates whose parents were Indian immigrants. The reason is because my parents didn’t meet in India, they met in Africa. This is relevant because they are from vastly different parts of India. My dad is Tamil, born and raised in Madras, and my mother is Bengali, and was raised mostly in Mumbai. As they would characterize it, it’s like a man from the deep south married a woman from Manhattan. Very different culturally. Dad speaks Tamil and English, and Mom speaks Bengali, Hindi and English. So English was their only common language. I was not raised speaking an indian dialect. My parents adopted a kind of Boston-by-way-of-India-by-way-of-Nigeria culture with some Indian flourishes: Christmas dinner cooked in the traditional American style but with shrimp curry where all we do is talk about the Celtics.

But I do consider myself Hindu. I wrote an Office episode about the Hindu holiday Diwali.

Sorry for this long-winded answer.