Blog

Growing Up / 03.04.2016

You never forget your first hate crime, especially as the victim. Just like your first day of school, first kiss, or first love the moment is seared into your brain. Moving from Bellwood, Illinois to Rialto, California at the end of 5th grade and start of my 6th grade year was a challenge for our entire family. The harsh winters of Chicago were too much to bear for my aging grandparents, great-aunties, and Puppa, who worked outside at O’Hare Airport. Puppa’s “bones would ache” from the bitter winds that the area was known for; no matter how many layers of...

4 Likes
Growing Up / 03.03.2016

All families harbor secrets. If you are fortunate enough to belong to a tribe, whether blood related or by choice, there is a time where you gain a kernel of knowledge that can consume your entire existence- if you allow it. The elders’ hushed tones when I walked into the room were always a sign of an adult conversation. Having arrived in America less than a year, there wasn’t much to discuss but a single topic that weighed on my khandan (tribe) like the heavy, bleak winter season that we had barely managed to survive. While wrapped in secrecy and bone-chilling...

3 Likes
Humanity / 10.02.2016

The kindest, most genuine man I’ve ever known carried a gun. My Daada (paternal grandfather) was born in India, sometime around December 1918. Record keeping was of no importance when the family elders documented everything in an oral history, sharing stories at multi-generational family gatherings, and offering up morsels to the younger generation to carry away and savor. Daada always had to work harder, prove himself worthy, be the best in sportsmanship, scholastics, and citizenship because the color of his skin- brown. Even though the Indian population was much larger and more diverse than the Whites ruling them, it was a...

3 Likes
Growing Up / 15.01.2016

For most teenagers braces are as natural a right of passage as blemishes and awkwardness. I say for most because smile alignment is not a priority to the poor or the middle class families that are struggling. It’s the difference between “need” and “want”. When our boys were only toddlers and they would want something, the educator in me devised a saying. “We need food, water, shelter, and love.” All else falls in the want category. In later years, I added education to the “need” column because in my experience that has been the gateway to understanding and finding common...

4 Likes
Humanity / 02.12.2015

In my naïve nature, I thought terrorists only targeted big cities- your NYC, Paris, and Londons of the world. San Bernardino and Redlands are dots on a world map where our only reference point is in relation to Los Angeles, so why would anyone want to bother us, make a point of hurting scores of people in a Regional Center whose main directive is to assist and help others? That changed today. The world knew where we were, even if for a moment. The world knew that San Bernardino is the largest county in the United States with a...

3 Likes