Category: Children
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Happy Birthday, Why is My Skin Brown?
It’s Sunday night and I am catching up on work. As I wait for a batch to finish running, I am looking through my launch day checklist, all the different trackers I have going for the next few days and weeks. If the launch of Why is My Hair Curly? was pure vibes, this feels…
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Seeing Themselves: On Diversity in Children’s Books
Collected in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). “That is not cha-na, its chhan-na.” My 11-year-old daughter born and raised in America corrects the white traveler on television sampling street food somewhere in northern India. Our family is of Indian origin. We speak Tamil and English at home sprinkled liberally with words from Hindi that have made…
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My Shadow
She follows me from the first walk to the last, watching, learning, absorbing. On my youngest, the child I did not write down, and what it means to be seen by her.
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The Mute Button
The night my caste essay went viral, the rage came from a familiar quarter. On naming, the backlash that proved the point, and who decides what comes into the house.
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What the Hands Know
Felix has been refusing his food. The kibble sits in his bowl untouched, so I reach for the treats he likes, the duck rounds. I pick two. They are circular, and they look and feel like cardboard. I have never had duck, so I cannot say, but if I were to eat one I imagine…
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A New Book Is Coming: Why Is My Skin Brown?
A new middle-grade novel is on the way. Sarayu is twelve, Pennsylvania-born, and about to learn that Bengaluru has its own ideas about her skin.
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Unplugged Parenting: Walking, Conversations, and Embracing Moments of Joy
“Can we go on a walk?” My middle child pops into the living room where I am prone on the sofa, the lazy ceiling fan lulling me into sleep. Amma is seated across the room. I squint at the window. The sun is still pretty bright for 6:00 pm. “How about after dinner?” I suggest.…
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Mother. Daughter. Mother.
“Skipping time” Amma calls out to my prepubescent youngest child who is upstairs talking to a friend over Facetime. I am in the kitchen doing dishes, amused by the interaction. I hear the sound of jumping upstairs as Laddu counts and jumps a hundred times. She is out of breath but rushes proudly to her…
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Vestiges Of Innocence
“Mom! mom!!” Her excitement is contagious as she bounds down the stairs, her smile stretching from ear to ear, her eyes wide as saucers. I have my AirPods on as I listen to a masterclass on retrograde planets. I pause the lesson and slow my pace to take in what is happening. “The tooth fairy…
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Defining Success: Yet
I was logged in to work, early for a Friday morning that is, when Laddu, also logged into her school iPad in the same room, walked up to me. Her face was serious. I removed my ear phones and gave her my full attention preparing myself to send a note to her teacher whatever the…