On Becoming a Writer

In 2019, when Vidhi first reached out to me to write a children’s book, I was walking on a treadmill, talking to her. I was excited. I was just beyond grateful that my words resonated with somebody enough for them to commission a piece of work. So when I wrote that book, I was drawing from experience. I was trying to capture nostalgia: the train journeys, the park, the hidden letters, the fascination with the notion of identity. Most of all I was writing for the ten year old Lakshmi. What would she have enjoyed? A book set in India, populated with characters who were relatable. A mother who worked, a father who was available. In drafting that book, I reached into myself, my experiences, my dreams for what a child should be reading.

It was also the first time I was traditionally published. Everything was new and novel. I had my publisher pinned to my favorites, she had a special ringtone (she still does). My heart leapt each time I saw an email with her name on it. Then the illustrations came in, the cover first in black and white, then in color. Every step was savored, processed and written down for myself. I dreamed of a book tour, signing at bookstores, meeting kids, sharing the story with them.

When Why Is My Hair Curly? came out in July 2020, the world was literally fighting a plague. I celebrated the launch with family, a cake iced with the cover, a Facebook Live where my earliest readers cheered me on. The book didn’t do as well as I had hoped. COVID had impacted it, despite Westland’s stellar marketing. I thought of myself as a one-book wonder. I was content with what was, not seeing beyond that moment.

Over the next couple of years, a part of me rejoiced when I stumbled on my book in the wild, when new reviews popped up on Amazon or Goodreads. Somewhere within me, permission was building to think of myself as an author. I felt freed to write another book, then two more.

When I started writing Why Is My Skin Brown?, it was the first time I was thinking beyond my own lived experience. I was thinking instead about what I want to talk to my child about, what I want my children to read: something topical, something relevant to my child’s experience as an Indian American. A lot of that has to do with how I’ve started looking at myself in terms of identity. So from just being a mother, being a woman in STEM, being an immigrant, if you take away all of those labels, at my heart, I have always been a writer. And for the first time in my life, I’m embracing that label. I want to put in the work.

Given that my publisher is based in India, and their primary audience is there too, I balanced the story between the two countries that have my heart. I don’t know what the marketing will look like this time around.

With Why Is My Skin Brown? coming out in about a week, I don’t feel the exhilaration or the excitement I felt with my first book. With Why Is My Hair Curly?, there was no expectation of what the outcome should be. I was just grateful that the book existed. That is true for this one too. I’m grateful that this book exists. But underneath all of it, there is also this, a wish, a hope, a prayer. Something that wants this book to do well. If not commercially, definitely critically. I want it to reach the readers that it should. That’s all.

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