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What the Lens Sees
Two hundred and twenty-four professional photos arrive at eleven at night. I pick twenty. None of them, finally, for the woman walking between rooms, mid-thought.
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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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The Archive Remembers
A question to an AI about Generative Engine Optimization became a week of restructuring seventeen years of my archive, and a night of meeting the selves I used to be.
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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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Whose Tongues Come First
A ParentSquare notification arrives in Tamil and the dropdown to switch is buried four screens down. An essay on mother tongue, colonial inheritance, and the joy of learning Korean in my fifties.
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The Refusal to Translate
A response to the argument that every major Indian writer lives abroad and writes from memory. The real variable isn’t geography. It’s whether the publishing chain between you and the reader lets you keep the sentence intact.
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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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Nithya Raman, Okra, and the Brown Woman’s Second Act
I wrote about Rini Sampath in April. Nithya Raman is the next part of the question. The first act has a script. The second act has none.
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What a Vote Earns Here
Five names I knew. Knew like people. Not names on a yard sign at the end of someone’s driveway. The primary is the ballot you make, before the ballot you have to choose from.
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On Sōseki, K-Dramas, and Twenty-Five Years
After dinner I walk to the window and look up. Tsuki ga kirei desu ne: the moon is beautiful, isn’t it. Sōseki’s translation of I love you, the K-drama that revived it, and twenty-five years of pointing at the moon.