Meera Kymal, Managing Editor
I really loved Meera Valliath Temple’s personal reflection on raising biracial kids and the next-gen challenges of cross-cultural parenting in The Magic, Mystery & Challenge Of Raising My Mixed Race Kids.’ As a parent who has raised ‘mixed’ (Malayali and Coorgi) children in cross-cultural contexts on two continents, the joys, hiccups, and dilemmas of navigating language, ethnicity, and cultures resonated with me. Kudos to Meera for writing about her experience with honesty and sensitivity.
Particularly, this quote stayed with me:
“I don’t know how it will feel to them to grow up mixed-race, second-generation Indian-American on one side and Mayflower descendants on the other.”
As a mentor to high school interns, I’m often in awe of the vision and articulation of the next generation of writers. Amann in particular stood out in her choice of subject and ability to wield a compelling narrative as she did in her story about Kashmiri journalist Anuradha Bhasin. This political story, ‘Kashmiri Journalist Anuradha Bhasin: The Birth Of A Dismantled State’ about a controversial journalist showed nuance and understanding beyond her years.
My favorite quote?
“The presence of these historical ghosts, alongside the real and tangible communal fractures around her — including a physical attack on her journalist father by right-wing Hindus in 1983 — marked the end of the peace that had characterized her early years.”
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Anjana Nagarajan-Butaney, Donor Engagement Advisor
As an avid reader of all things fiction and non-fiction, it is hard for me to find my favorite IC stories of the year. However, a few stood out for their profound impact on me. Meera Kymal’s stories about our older adults finding their sense of belonging as they age in this country touched me. Our families are everything to us, but how do we age in a society that values individualism while maintaining our cultural norms? Find out in ‘Asian Indian Elders Yearn For ‘Apnapan’ (Belonging) As They Age In America.’
Ashwini Gangal’s piece on language and its nuances – A Desi Immigrant Lost English Words & Found Them In Transition – also struck a nostalgic chord, bringing back vivid memories of my own journey of assimilation after immigrating here. These stories reminded me of the power of storytelling to connect us to our experiences, our communities, and each other.
Snigdha Sen, Contributing Editor
What if coming to America was a decision, not an imperative? What if your official immigrant status is not the only thing keeping you from fully assimilating? Being in an immigrant state of mind is almost impossible to describe: it’s a quantum feeling of being in two worlds, living two lives at the same time. I particularly enjoyed how writer and new immigrant Ashwini Gangal tackled these questions in her story ‘So That’s What A Wsherman’s Dog Feels Like ‘about assimilating in her new home in California.
This story stood out to me for its honesty, humor, and the author’s desire to be hopeful as she navigates her evolving emotions toward her life in India and her future in the U.S. The image of the proverbial dhobi ka kutta – the washerman’s dog – aptly captures the immigrant experience. Ashwini objectively explores her own feelings, which are also in transition. She articulates with ease what many immigrants silently experience.
Nandita Bose, Contributing Editor
Two stories narrated by IC’s health and wellness columnist Dr. Mukund Acharya resonated with me deeply this year, and I laud both the protagonists of these stories. They are women who are living their daily lives with immense bravery – one to overcome quadriplegia and the other, living with end-stage renal disease – while asking themselves, “What can I do for the community?”
Ashla became a quadriplegic after a horrific accident in which she was thrown out of a running train. After four years of excruciatingly painful recovery, Ashla reinvented herself by working to assist other patients with spinal cord injuries at an organization called Pallium in India. Read more about Ashla’s journey in ‘A Wellspring of Joy.’
For Silicon Valley-based Deepti Bahel, battling end-stage renal disease, it is the Sword of Damocles that hangs over her. Waiting for a kidney transplant, she manages with the peritoneal dialysis system filtering her blood overnight so she can live to see another dawn. Yet, Deepti has been working to educate the community about kidney health – she recently got certified as a ‘kidney health coach’ – and managing kidney disease. Read more about courageous Deepti’s life in ‘Living With A Death Sentence.’
Prachi Singh, Audience Engagement Editor
Tanay Gokhale’s piece about the string of robberies at Indian homes in Cupertino was a great piece of local reporting on an issue very relevant to Indian Americans, the community we’re committed to serving. He did an amazing job diving deep with his coverage in ‘Indian Homes in Cupertino Neighborhood Terrorized By Burglaries.’ We were also able to use WhatsApp as a safe space for people to reach out to us in connection with this story, hence building our community engagement.
It’s difficult to pick any one piece from Meera’s Aging series, but this one starts with the unexpected, with the non-traditional, immediately hooking me in. That apart, the story is an amazing study of different outlooks on aging and an exploration of redefining old age. Read about it in ‘Leaving A Legacy Like A Dewdrop On A Lotus Leaf’ – Asian Indians Redefine Aging In America.‘
Tanay Gokhale, Community Reporter
In a year when elections in India and the U.S. took center stage in our coverage, Ashwin Murthy made some astute observations about Indian-American voters in his opinion piece ‘The Paradox Of Indian Americans Who Lean Left In The US, But Right In India.’ Specifically, he points out that many desi voters in the U.S. rally against Trump’s policies, but tacitly support similar policies of the Modi government in an Indian context.
My second pick is not one story, but the entire Desis on the Ballot series. The editorial team worked hard to track down, interview, and profile more than twenty South Asian politicians running for different levels of office in the Bay Area, all in time for the all-important Election Day, November 5. This was the first time that India Currents documented the Bay Area’s diaspora’s engagement with American politics with such depth, and we look forward to continuing similarly with more elections down the road!