As Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)” has become a regular on the local bestseller list, two teachers at her high school alma mater, Cambridge’s Buckingham Browne & Nichols, say they aren’t surprised by her success.
Now in his 35th year at BB&N, Rob Leith, 60, met Kaling in his role as faculty adviser to the student newspaper. “She wrote a column on the back page of the paper, which was called ‘Woman on the Street.’ ” Under Kaling’s authorship, the column — previously titled “Man on the Street” — became “the first place everybody turned when the paper came out.”
As a writer and actor for television (“The Office,” “The Mindy Project”), Kaling aims a sharp wit at her own bubbly persona and anyone else in target range. As BB&N’s woman on the street, Leith says, her columns could be controversial — “she liked to test boundaries” — and her biting social observations didn’t always pass muster with the school’s authority figures.
“Part of the school motto is ‘kindness’,” says Roger Stacey, 70, now retired from BB&N, who taught Kaling in a junior English course that focused on satire — from Chaucer and Swift to Waugh and Kesey — a class Kaling has cited as a great influence on her work. “Satire is not always perceived as the kindest medium,” Stacey says, which perhaps explains why Leith remembers Kaling as having “caused me more grief” than any other columnist. Still, he says, “it was worth it.”
Kaling’s comedic talent was overwhelmingly clear even then, Leith says, adding, “it would have surprised me if she hadn’t become well-known.” Stacey concurs, adding that he’s pleased both that “women have claimed a growing voice in satire” and that his former student is “among the strongest of those voices.”
Neither teacher wishes to take credit — “I think Mindy would have been a success whether she took my course or not,” Stacey says, “but I am pleased to hear that she enjoyed it.” Still, both follow her public career, at least in print. Leith says, “I have to confess that I’ve never seen her on television.”
Kate Tuttle, a writer and editor, can be reached at kate.tuttle@gmail.com.