Mindy Kaling on Dating Life, Reese Witherspoon Set Up

Mindy writes that it was after she coordinated her daughter's Mundan—a Hindu ceremony in which you shave your baby's head "to rid you of the negativity from your past life"—that she was hit with realization that she was going to truly be a single mother. "Why was I crying so much? Because I think that it finally dawned on me that I have a child who will never know her grandmother, the person who was the closest to me in the world," she explains. "And I was about to start this journey with my daughter by myself without the help of my mother. I was going to raise her alone, and I was terrified."

However, the actress says she was comforted by the traditions her mother raised her with, writing, "The reason I'm Kind of Hindu and will raise my daughter to be Kind of Hindu is to have this connection deep inside my own heart to other people who look like us and have shared key experiences, thousands of miles away... As long as Kit and I are Kind of Hindu, we will never be alone."