Detailed Profile

[strongnarrativevoice]

Body and Appearance
1. Describe the character's height and build. Is he heavyset, thin, short, rangy?

Mohinder is of pretty average height, about 5'10". He's more on the slim side of average build, but his shoulders are quite broad and his arms are well-toned.

2. How old is he?

32 during the first three volumes, 33 by the start of the fourth.

3. Describe his posture. Does he carry himself well or does he slouch?

It depends where he is. When he's alone in his apartment or his lab, he tends to hunch over whatever he's working on or slouch casually in his chair, but when he's around others, he tries to project more confidence with straighter posture.

4. How is his health? Is he fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities?

Aside from some temporary-but-horrible experimental mutations that nearly killed him with weird fibrous web mucus in his lungs, he's in great physical condition. He's in better shape than someone with super strength needs to be, and even now that he's broken himself of the habit of self-experimentation, he still monitors his own vitals to ensure that everything remains within normal range.

5. How does he move? Is he clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid?

Relatively graceful, but in a way that gives the subtle impression of not coming naturally. The more out of his depth he feels, the more forcedly casual and a little bit swaggering his movements get, in order to give the illusion of confidence--but when he's in his element, such as when he's teaching or lecturing, his movements are more exaggerated and enthusiastic.

6. How attractive is this character physically? How does he perceive himself in the mirror?

Mohinder is not unaware that he's really good-looking, nor incapable of using his looks to his advantage, but he's not quite as vain about it as he could be. He tends to be considered more attractive in America than he is back home, but he hasn't really picked up on this, so he thinks of himself as "above average" rather than "fine-ass smokeshow."

7. Describe his complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred?

Dark, perfectly smooth, and the sort of cool-toned that lends itself better to silver accents than gold.

8. Describe his hair: color, texture, style.

A dense, jet-black mass of ringlet curls, usually kept on the longer side. If he exerts himself too much, it'll frizz and puff up like a balloon, even if he's made a valiant effort to plaster it back with heavy-duty pomade. His sideburns would be the envy of any Civil War soldier.

9. What color are his eyes?

Very deep brown, nearly black, with a little spot of color that has bled outside the iris of the left one.

10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features?

Not really. He doesn't have any tattoos, piercings, or birthmarks. He has a subtle scar through his right eyebrow, but it's only noticeable in certain lights.

12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does he have six of the same suit?

Mohinder's way of dressing can charitably be described as "hiding the hot." Every pair of trousers he owns is a size too big for him--wide-legged cargo pants, flared jeans with dragging hems--and he never met a giant wrinkled overshirt he wouldn't cocoon himself in.

He favors bright colors (orange and pink especially) when he doesn't have reason to keep a low profile, and earth tones when he does. His shirts tend to have patterns like embroidered florals and paisleys. And then there are the scarves. Fringed scarves. Rainbow scarves. Mohinder loves a good colorful scarf.

13. Do his clothes fit well? Does he seem comfortable in them?

As detailed above, his clothes fit terribly, but he seems to prefer swimming in oversized things and wears them with perfect contentment. At some point, he does cycle most of the really baggy things out and get himself some normal sweaters and t-shirts in his actual size, but the pants stay huge.

14. Does he dress the same on the job as he does in his free time? If not, what are the differences?

"On the job" varies widely, and he does update his wardrobe accordingly. When driving a cab, he sticks to hoodies and jeans; when teaching or lecturing, he wears loose but appropriately-formal linen suits; when doing mad science for shady evil organizations, he wears button-downs and khakis under his lab coats.

In his free time, around the house, he'll bum around in sweatpants. He generally likes to opt for the minimum level of formality he can get away with.

15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando?

Boxer briefs, the kind that come in 3-packs. He goes for the most colorful ones available, which sometimes means muted blues and maroons and sometimes means Nickelodeon-slime green. It's like Russian roulette whenever you take off his pants.

Speech
1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse?

Mohinder's voice is a soft-spoken tenor that can verge on baritone when he wants it to. It's smooth and silky with a little bit of a purring quality underneath it, and he has been told more than once (sometimes as a compliment, sometimes not) that it's ideal for putting people to sleep.

2. How does he normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does he talk easily, or does he hesitate?

He's accustomed to giving scientific lectures, so he's well-practiced at speaking clearly and evenly, but if he gets excited about something, he'll speed up. If he's very worked-up, he'll stammer a little, but that's rare. Only when he's really angry does his speech slow down, as a method of demonstrating contempt and icy control.

3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics?

His natural accent, the one he had before moving to New York, is a soft Indian lilt with trilled R's. When he's outside of India, though, he puts on a flawlessly posh English accent that gets all the posher and crisper the more annoyed or angry he becomes--and then it just kind of sticks, even during his brief forays back to his home country. After he's been in America for a couple years, the English accent stays in place even when he's drugged and barely-conscious.

4. What language/s does he speak, and with how much fluency?

He would say that his first language is English and his mother tongue is Tamil, and he speaks them with equal fluency. His grasp of Hindi is mediocre, but sufficient to hold a conversation, and he speaks enough French to get around Port-au-Prince without embarrassing himself.

5. Does he switch languages or dialects in certain situations?

He defaults to English even when home in Chennai, but if someone starts speaking to him in Tamil he'll switch over and speak it in turn. When in America, especially if his young ward Molly is within earshot, he'll swear in Tamil rather than expose her to English profanity--which will inevitably backfire someday when she simply adopts that instead and leaves him to explain to her teachers what "thevidiya paiya" means.

When he's around his telepathic friend Matt, he does his level best to think in Tamil to keep his thoughts inscrutable. It doesn't work very well, because it does take genuine effort for him not to think in English when he's surrounded by it. Matt also now has a colorful vocabulary of filth in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu at his disposal, as just because Mohinder is usually classy enough not to say it doesn't mean he ain't thinking it.

6. Is he a good impromptu speaker, or does he have to think about his words?

Better than most, but he still does best when he's working off a set of memorized lecture notes.

7. Is he eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change?

He's usually very eloquent, sometimes to the point of unnecessary verbosity. Only when completely out of his depth and under duress (for example, when being threatened on pain of torture to produce scientific results he doesn't know how to get) does he ever break down and trip over his words.

Mental and Emotional
1. How intelligent is this character? Is he book-smart or street-smart?

Mohinder is the most book-smart person in nearly any of his social circles, save for his ex-girlfriend Mira. It puts him in pretty high demand among people who need scientists in their employ, but he makes up for it by being decidedly below-average in common sense.

2. Does he think on his feet, or does he need time to deliberate?

Thinking quickly is one thing he can do well, which is good, because he so often gets himself into situations where he needs to. He's very resourceful at getting himself out of trouble once it dawns on him that he's actually in it. His particular specialty is figuring out how to turn whatever's nearest at hand into an unorthodox weapon.

3. Describe the character's thought process. Is he more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical?

Idealistic to a fault, and as intuitive as one can get while still beholden to the scientific method. He's the kind of scientist who gets sudden hunches, scribbles them down on the nearest piece of paper, and races off to test them (sometimes on himself.)

4. What kind of education has the character had?

He comes from an upper-middle-class family of academics who took education more seriously than anything else, so he's always had the best of it. His childhood was spent at a series of prestigious Chennai day schools, where he studied his ass off every year in the hopes of impressing his father--and while that effort was futile, it did result in grades good enough to earn him entry to the University of Delhi, and from there to a doctoral program in genetics at Cambridge. Even Chandra, at that point, couldn't fail to be proud.

5. What are his areas of expertise? What, if anything, is he interested in learning more about?

His area of expertise seems to be "whatever kind of science the plot requires expertise in, ranging from genetics to virology to plate tectonics," but mostly genetics. He has a 75% long-term survival record at providing first aid to gunshot victims, knows how to avoid New York City traffic as well as anyone, and can adequately care for a pet iguana.

Being a Scientist™, there aren't a lot of things he isn't interested in learning more about, but of particular interest to him is astronomy as it relates to the effect of solar eclipses on superhuman abilities.

6. Is he an introvert or an extrovert?

More of an introvert. Mohinder's not great with people and knows it, and he'd usually rather keep to himself so that he doesn't have to focus any of his energy on being polite or entertaining.

7. Describe the character's temperament. Is he even-tempered or does he have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven?

Anyone who knows Mohinder for longer than a day or so will come to realize that he's got a temper on him, though it's usually expressed in relatively harmless snapping and arguing. It goes hand-in-hand with being incredibly driven, in that he'll routinely work himself to the edge of collapse and then throw things at walls out of exhausted frustration.

8. How does he respond to new people or situations? Is he suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic?

Suspicious as a general rule, usually for good reason when half the new people he meets are spying on him, but curious all the same.

9. Is he more likely to act, or to react?

Act, to the point where he frequently does so without thinking and then has to deal with the consequences of his recklessness.

10. Which is his default: fight or flight?

Fight, which goes hand-in-hand with the above, though he does have just enough of a sense of self-preservation to run away if he really thinks he's in mortal danger. Usually.

11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does he appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks?

Wry, occasionally mean-spirited sarcasm and deadpan one-liners. While he's not often one for making really dark or edgy jokes himself, he'll usually appreciate them from others even if he doesn't admit it.

12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does he deal with them?

Nothing diagnosable, just a truckload of daddy issues. He deals with these by lashing out and projecting them onto others.

13. What moments in this character's life have defined him as a person?

14. What does he fear?

15. What are his hopes or aspirations?

16. What is something he doesn't want anyone to find out about him?



Relationships
1. Describe this character's relationship with his parents.

"Fucked up," in two words. Neither of them ever told him that he was conceived for the sake of providing blood transfusions to his dying sister--or, for that matter, that he'd ever had a sister in the first place--and so Mohinder spent 32 years of his life thinking that the shadow Shanti cast over it was his own fault. While his mother insists that the lies of omission were for his benefit, lest he compare himself unfavorably to the sister who had superpowers while he didn't, they did Mohinder's sense of self-worth far more harm than good.

It might not have helped to know that his father (and to an extent his mother as well) irrationally blamed him for having been born too late to save Shanti, but the alternative was taking his father's disappointment and distance at face value when he tried to discourage Mohinder from following in his footsteps by telling him he was too fragile and emotional to be a scientist. Mohinder's entire career has been a desperate exercise in simultaneously trying to impress Chandra and prove him wrong, when Chandra hadn't actually been trying to do anything except stop his son from unwittingly scratching open half-healed emotional wounds.

Chandra did love Mohinder, in his own way, but that way unfortunately didn't involve the ability to tell him so. Likewise, his mother's way of demonstrating her love took the form of trying to protect him from things he didn't need protecting from, manifestations of her own unprocessed grief over having been unable to protect her daughter from the virus that killed her. Mohinder tries to understand and forgive his parents for the trauma they suffered and passed on to him, but it's difficult, and all the more so when he's never actually had a model of healthy coping skills to imitate.

2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like?

See above. His sister Shanti, who would have been five years older than he was, died a few months before he was born. The lack of a relationship with her fucked him up more than he even realizes.

3. Are there other blood relatives to whom he is close? Are there ones he can't stand?

None that he's really close to, just various aunts and uncles and cousins that he sees on holidays and gets along with okay.

4. Are there other, unrelated people whom he considers part of his family? What are his relationships with them?

His ward, Molly Walker, of whom he does not technically have legal custody, but he's friends with the guy who does and makes decisions jointly with him.

In a sense, Molly is almost a blood relative of his, in that transfusions of his blood and the antibodies therein were the only way to save her from meeting the same fate as his sister did. The closure and validation of having been able to do that are meaningful to him, and make him feel a sense of responsibility toward Molly that he wouldn't feel towards a kid in other circumstances, but he loves and admires her for her courage and resilience as well, and they understand each other well on the "having both lost their fathers to the same serial killer" level.

5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet?

Though he might not admit it, as they're always bickering, he'd consider Matt Parkman his best friend. Living together and raising a child together has a way of bonding people, after all, even if the situation was temporary, and it's hard not to trust a guy who can hear all your thoughts, because...not trusting him is not actually an option, so you might as well.

Besides which, they met when Mohinder knocked him unconscious with a fire extinguisher, so the fact that friendship was an option after that means they've got to be pretty compatible.

6. Does he have other close friends?

His former colleague Nirand, though Nirand was always more Chandra's friend than Mohinder's. Nirand's just kind of always been around, ever since Mohinder was a teenager, and Mohinder considers him comforting and safe and trustworthy. Except for those few times when he blatantly lied about Chandra's findings to keep Mohinder from investigating them further, but eh, details. Mohinder forgives him. Nirand's too reliable a family friend not to.

He considers Peter Petrelli a good friend in the sense that he trusts Peter more than he does most people, and genuinely likes him as a person--but spending time with Peter tends to make Mohinder feel like an asshole in comparison, which in turn makes him self-conscious enough to act like even more of one. The fact that Peter is a nice enough person to continue putting up with him even so is kind of a catch-22, but with effort, Mohinder is getting better at reciprocating the friendship.

7. Does he make friends easily, or does he have trouble getting along with people?

Getting along with people isn't even Mohinder's strong suit when they are his friends. He tries, though. Sometimes.

8. Which does he consider more important: family or friends?

Family, whether the family in question wants him to or not.

9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has he been married more than once?

Single, never married, and terrible at maintaining romantic relationships. He's been on-again and off-again with Mira Shenoy often enough for it to count as like three separate relationships, and he had considered proposing to her once, but...didn't.

10. Is he currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse?

Nope. Just periodically hooking up with attractive Company women and hot research subjects. He does at least feel guilty about the latter, and would not have done it without the influence of Crazy Adrenaline Serum.

11. Who was his first crush? Who is his latest?

12. What does he look for in a romantic partner?

Shared interests are the key thing, really, which is why he and Mira had initially worked well as a couple--they met at Cambridge, studying genetics together, and they could be like kids in a candy store talking about all their theories before he latched onto his father's work and threw his professional credibility to the winds.

After all the things he's seen and done now, he knows he can't really be happy with someone who still wants to pretend that none of it was real, but he also doesn't believe anyone could hear the details of what he did for Pinehearst and still want him.

13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does he relate to them? If no, does he want any?

Aside from Molly, who counts emotionally if not legally, Mohinder really doesn't want kids. He can't imagine himself being a good father, and he also knows, deep down, that he's someday going to return to the kind of work that would put his family in danger if he had one.

14. Does he have any rivals or enemies?

A whole lot of them! Sylar, naturally, though that rivalry has somewhat run its course. Flint Gordon, who is still around at the canon point Mohinder usually comes from. Samuel Sullivan, of whom the other two would probably be envious, since he's the one who actually managed to kill Mohinder, albeit temporarily. The list goes on.

15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does he fall on the Kinsey scale?

Bisexual, though he leans toward women and tends to repress his feelings for men. Mostly this is because he's discovering that his type as far as men go is "tall, dark and morally bankrupt," and he would rather not actually indulge this.

16. How does he feel about sex? How important is it to him?

Mohinder has a pretty high sex drive and not much difficulty finding people who want to help him satisfy it, but he's susceptible to catching feelings about it. He'd like to be better at keeping hookups casual than he actually is, but since he's self-aware enough to know he's bad at that, he doesn't do casual sex all that often.

17. What are his turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits?



Beliefs
1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does he fit type?

His birthday is April 8, making him an Aries, which fits well enough with his stubborn determination and obsessive passion about his research.

2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in his life?

He's agnostic, having been taught by his father as a child that religion and science were mutually exclusive paths, yet still unable to fully shake off the fear of divine judgment that his devoutly Hindu grandmother instilled in him.

Mohinder wishes he could be a confident atheist, and tries to fake it by being flippant about the concepts of prayer and faith as a whole, but he still puts just a little too much stock in his nightmares about the wrath of the goddess Kali.

3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it?

Mohinder has decided, through long, guilty experience, that having a code of ethics is a luxury he can't afford.

But he tries, really, and the further he drifts away from what used to be his ethical limit, the more angrily and hypocritically he lashes out at others for doing the same thing. He condemns Matt's questioning of Noah with "this isn't interrogation, it's torture," despite having done far worse himself both to Noah and to Sylar. There's very little Mohinder can't be talked into by convincing him that it's for some nebulous greater good, but at the very least, he's always going to feel really, really shitty about it.

After his experiments into a cure for his serum mutations crossed the "don't kill innocent people for personal gain" threshold he would once have held sacred, though, he's afraid he'll keep sliding down that slippery slope unless he does something drastic to atone.

4. How does he regard beliefs that differ from his? Is he tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent?

He's always curious, even if he's not an anthropologist, but he does have a tendency to be arrogant and condescending about things like religious beliefs. Mohinder's a lot more naturally judgmental than he would like to think he is.

5. What prejudices does he hold? Are they irrational or does he have a good reason for them?

Not many, save for, as above, his thinly-veiled belief that people who believe strongly in religion are silly and provincial for it. He doesn't have much reason for this beyond "because Dad said so."

Daily Life
1. What is the character's financial situation? Is he rich, poor, comfortable, in debt?

Back home in India, he had a comfortable salary at the university and a well-off family to fall back on if he had to. Since coming to America, however, he's been forced to drive a cab to pay the rent on his dad's apartment, and the temporary assistance he'd gotten from Matt on that front had been no match for suddenly having to provide for a ten-year-old girl. Things are tight.

2. What is his social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected him?

As certain of Mohinder's former university colleagues were quick to remind him, he grew up in a lot of privilege that he sometimes takes for granted. While his father and grandfather before him were professors as well, and not extraordinarily wealthy, his mother's side of the family came from a bit more money. The Sureshes had a big spacious house and the luxury of not having to care about appearances, and Mohinder wanted for nothing as a child except his parents' approval.

Having to drive a cab for a living hit him hard at first, when the very idea had initially been a warning he'd used, in a tone of scandalized horror, to try and dissuade his father from leaving. His adoption of the posh English accent that has become his trademark is in part a response to this status shift, a way of trying to stave off racism from his passengers.

3. Where does he live? House, apartment, trailer? Is his home his castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does he share it with others?

At his current canon point, between volumes 3 and 4, he lives in the one room of the Reed Street lab that he hasn't coated in paralytic web-goo, because Matt and Daphne have taken over what used to be his apartment before he got too busy turning into a bug-lizard to keep up with the rent. There's no kitchen in the place anymore, so he's been subsisting on the cheapest takeout he can find. It's not fun.

4. Besides the basic necessities, what does he spend his money on?

Books, as befits a nerdy professor, and fancy varieties of tea, and well-made high-end versions of things like coats and shoes. He likes to experiment with cooking, so he'll splurge on interesting ingredients and good kitchenware as well.

5. What does he do for a living? Is he good at it? Does he enjoy it, or would he rather be doing something else?

It varies a lot, from lecturing to tutoring to research, but he is good at it, especially the research.

It's not just talent that has him in high demand on that front--the kind of shady companies who like to recruit him are interested in keeping everyone who knows about superhuman abilities under one roof if they can, and Mohinder tends to paint a target on his own back by transparently being the kind of person they can manipulate--but he's good at putting his "Eureka!" moments into practice and coming up with fast, concrete results.

He doesn't really have the luxury of enjoying that, since he's nearly always doing it under duress, but he'll still take it over teaching, which he finds excruciatingly dull even though he doesn't want to admit it and feels like he shouldn't.

6. What are his interests or hobbies? How does he spend his free time?

He doesn't have a lot of free time, caught as he usually is between a tedious day job with long hours and one dire world-threatening crisis or another. But he likes cooking and finds it relaxing, and enjoys unwinding in the kitchen with the radio on.

7. What are his eating habits? Does he skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods?

Mohinder is a well-traveled guy with an adventurous and cultured palate and a talent for cooking healthy, balanced meals. This in no way precludes him from eating Trix for breakfast or drinking chocolate milk straight out of the carton. Let him live.

He's not big on alcohol, but he can be persuaded to have a drink or two on social occasions, where he'll stick with a pale ale or a glass of white wine. The only foods he really studiously avoids are lobster and crab. He thinks of them as aquatic insects and can't get over the mental block no matter how well they're cooked.