Category: Motherhood
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My Motherhood, Explained
I notice the family at the table we cross to get to ours. I notice them because they turn in unison looking us up and down, right to left and back. I notice them as they try to reconcile the story of us, the story of me. I hold her eyes, just a smidge before…
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Twenty-Five
Twenty-five years after I landed in Pennsylvania from Madras, the body that slept light has finally stopped bracing. On arrival, race, motherhood, and the home that turned out to be nowhere.
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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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What the Immigrant Mother Keeps
What does the immigrant mother actually keep. Not the language, not the ceremonies, but the invisible knowledge that settles in the hands without being formally taught. On Tamil American motherhood and what survives the crossing.
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Teaching the Kaapi
When nothing is genetic, what do immigrant mothers pass down? On kaapi, Tamil American motherhood, and the slow sediment of a life being observed.
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Three Different Mothers
Three daughters posted Mother’s Day tributes online — a scrapbook, a photo grid, a music video. Each one a different mother. An essay on being seen.
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Through the Door
My daughter was in the shower. The sentence that arrived before I was fully awake was: this is my child, but I don’t know her. A reflective essay on the week my daughters began to feel like strangers, and what my own mother said when I asked her the same question.
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Boxed In
It is dark when I pull out into our driveway. Pattu is hunched over in the front seat tying her shoe laces. Ammu is in the back seat, headphones covering her ears, looking at the slowly lightening skies, hues of pink and purple in the horizon. The bluetooth connects and Taylor Swift sings “Welcome to…
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Mother’s Day – A Long Line Of Ladies
“Can I give you the gift now?” Laddu is making circles around me in the study as I pause the Cdrama I am watching with a reluctant sigh. “You can give it to me on Sunday” I say and hit unpause on the video player. She rolls her eyes before walking out in a huff.…
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Mom – Primary Identity
“Third grade dance group”, “Bus xx group” are few of the active WhatsApp groups on my phone. I scroll through the list and barring a couple of groups that serve as a neighborhood water cooler, the rest are tangentially or directly related to my identity as mom. The messages that get traded here have to…