The boy who cheated death — My maternal grandfather, Raja, grew up under British rule, spoke British English, and had a dignified, gentlemanly air. He called his daily walk his “morning constitutional.” …

The captivating life of my Indian grandmother — My grandmother — my ammamma — was a child bride. Long before it was recognized as a human rights violation or trafficking or violence against girls, it was simply the way of the old world. The old world of rural India under British rule. Before she became my ammamma, she…

A love story in two parts — Once upon a time, there were two friends in a small village in India. They loved each other dearly and were inseparable. Everyone in the village knew that if one was around, the other was surely nearby. The boys told everyone they were brothers, and everyone treated them as such…

A Catholic village, a Hindu Child — When I was a toddler, we lived for a while in a small town in India called Vikarabad — a village, really — in a gated community known as the Mission Compound. The community was for Indian Catholics whom missionaries had converted generations prior. My family was Hindu (albeit not…

Eating our own — In India, the standard of beauty has long been fair skin. …

Left or right, please and thank you — I‘m terrible with directions. Can’t find my way out of the proverbial paper bag. Legend has it I’m in there still. A while back, there was an image making the rounds on the internet where Americans were asked to point to Ukraine on a map and botched it. Many guessed…

Red, white, and blue…with a touch of orange and green — When I first came to America, Norman Rockwell’s art was the gold standard in my eyes of what it meant to be American. He painted scenes that seemed to belong uniquely to the stars and stripes. I swooned at these apple pie slices of Americana. Rockwell made me pine for…

Hold space for those fighting for rights on multiple fronts — As an immigrant woman of Indian descent (born in India and raised in the U.S.), I cannot strip myself of my womanhood, ethnicity, or immigrant status to focus on the struggles of any one of those groups over the others. …

Need story ideas? Pay attention — class is in session — A while ago, I was chatting with a client about how I needed to make more time to learn new things. I waxed nostalgic about missing university lecture halls, the intellectual exchange of scholarly ideas, and exploring the depth and breadth of each others’ minds. [Never mind that I spent…