From simply looking at the cover photo of Myrmecophile, Ifti Nasim makes it clear that he is not here to hide any part of himself. The first image we have of him is a playful, subversive snapshot where he is decked out in full drag, donning a blonde wig, costume jewelry, pearls, and bangles. He … Read More
On a small island off the southernmost tip of India, a statue of the poet known only as Tiruvalluvar stands staring out at the confluence of two seas and one ocean. The statue is 133 feet high, symbolic of the 133 chapters that make up the 2000-year-old Tirukkural, a meditation on ethics, government, and the … Read More
About a dozen people are standing atop a green John Deere tractor, hoisting signs and waving flags with pro-farmer slogans. Many of them are turbaned Sikhs while others wear different of head coverings. The tractor crawls through throngs of people, many of them dancing in celebration. Cheers ring out throughout the crowd, and, in the … Read More
Farah Naz Rishi’s YA romance It All Comes Back To You is part Austenian marriage plot and part You Got Mail farce. Following the days before the much anticipated wedding of Amira and Faisal, the book focuses on their respective siblings, Kiran and Deen, as they scheme against each other to hide secrets and derail the wedding. … Read More
I was 28 when I visited a gynecologist for the first time, as a scientist in a foreign country, nonetheless. Requesting the morning off from attending to my cell cultures was the easiest part. I had even made the effort to schedule an appointment at an expat-friendly, English-speaking women’s clinic in the heart of Milan … Read More
Sunando Sen was an Indian immigrant living in America. In 2012, at 46, he fulfilled his dream of opening a print shop in Manhattan. Six months later, a woman pushed him off a subway platform and into the path of an oncoming train. In her own words, she “hated Hindus and Muslims” and had been … Read More
My first Bharatanatyam costume was made of saffron yellow silk with fuschia borders, woven with golden zari thread that glimmered under the stage lights. A costume like this was usually custom-made for the dancer, but my mother bought this outfit secondhand for a fraction of its value. It was created for another girl, but destiny … Read More
This essay appeared in Kajal, Volume 4: Food. You can purchase a copy here. Growing up in a nearly all white small town, I remember spending so much time looking for myself. Decades removed from the motherland itself, my India was a tapestry of objects and symbols woven together: Ganesha watching over cereal boxes in … Read More
This article was written by a group of South Asian feminist activists and students coming from a position of caste privilege and allyship. On April 29, the Santa Clara County Human Rights Commission is holding a public forum on caste discrimination that could lead to Santa Clara County becoming the first jurisdiction in the United … Read More
Sanjena Sathian’s novel Gold Diggers is concerned with conventional paths to success, and the possibilities that arise when we break from them. We meet the narrator, Neil Narayan, at a high school dance, where he sees dancing as a prescribed activity, a script. “I depended on scripts,” he thinks, “in those days before anyone asked … Read More
