by Kalpana M. | Oct 15, 2017 | Desi Lens
At the time I got the news about the new indulgences of parents, I was drinking a nice cup of ginger chai which shot up my nose and burned my nasal passages. I’d just learned that many Indian-American parents had begun hiring college counselors the summer after their...
by Sarita S. | Oct 6, 2017 | Last Word
In a Barcelona hotel room, I suffered a nervous breakdown. Almost. Why was I roaming the far reaches of the planet, I wondered, where many Indian women dared not go? Jet lagged and exhausted, I located the bus station and bought myself a ticket, then woke up at 3 a.m....
by Jaya Padmanabhan | Oct 4, 2017 | Now & Then
Recently, a friend asked me what I considered the best Barack Obama speech and it took me an instant or two to respond decisively with “the race speech.” It wasn’t as though I recalled many of the details, but I did remember the timbre of Obama’s voice as he talked...
by Nirupama V. | Oct 2, 2017 | Editorial
I once watched a movie which got me thinking about the traditions that I hold dear. I saw Kaadhal, a brilliant Tamil movie, that tackled inter-caste Indian marriages. The story went like this: Rich girl meets poor boy and falls in love. Poor boy resists because he...
by Sarita S. | Sep 11, 2017 | Last Word
I have always had difficulty with Margaret Atwood’s writings, perhaps because her visions of the future are too dark. Listening to the audio version of The Blind Assassin, I got thoroughly confused. No surprise then that I hadn’t read her classic, The Handmaid’s Tale,...
by Kalpana M. | Sep 5, 2017 | Desi Lens
The Silicon Valley is a bubble,” my daughter said when I tried to apply the logic of the valley to the rest of the country. My children live on the opposite coast and they have told me often that the Bay Area coddled and insulated us from most events that skewed the...
