Asian Window

Anand Giridharadas in the New York Times:

Mumbai: The first thing I ever learned about India was that my parents had chosen to leave it.

The country was lost to us in America, where I was born. It had to be assembled in my mind, from the fragments of anecdotes and regular journeys east.

Now, six years after returning to the country my parents left, as I prepare to depart it myself, the mind goes back to the beginning, to my earliest pictures of it.

India, reflected from afar, was late-night phone calls with the news of death. It was calling back relatives who could not afford to call you. It was Hindu ceremonies with saffron and Kit Kat bars on a silver platter.

India, consumed on our visits back, was being fetched from the airport and cooked a meal even in the dead of night. It was sideways hugs that strove to avoid breast contact. It was the chauvinism of uncles who asked about my dreams and ignored my sister’s. More:

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