You See For Me, America Is An

In Hindu Societies, Especially Overprotected Patriarchal Families Like Mine, Daughters Are Not At All Desirable. They Are Trouble. And A Mother Who, As Mine Did, Has Three Daughters, No Sons, Is Supposed To Go And Hang Herself, Kill Herself, Because It Is Such An Unlucky Kind Of Motherhood To Have.

Through My Fiction, I Make Mainstream Readers See The New Americans As Complex Human Beings, Not As Just The Other.

The Picture Of Mother Teresa That I Remember From My Childhood Is Of A Short, Sari-wearing Woman Scurrying Down A Red Gravel Path Between Manicured Lawns. She Would Have In Tow One Or Two Slower-footed, Sari-clad Young Indian Nuns. We Thought Her A Freak. Probably Wed Picked Up On Unvoiced Opinions Of Our Loreto Nuns.

In Traditional Hindu Families Like Ours, Men Provided And Women Were Provided For. My Father Was A Patriarch And I A Pliant Daughter. The Neighborhood I'd Grown Up In Was Homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, And Middle-class. I Didn't Expect Myself To Ever Disobey Or Disappoint My Father By Setting My Own Goals And Taking Charge Of My Future.

There Was No Audience For My Books. The Indians Didn't Regard Me As An Indian And North Americans Couldn't Conceive Of Me Of A North American Writer, Not Being White And Brought Up On Wheat Germ. My Fiction Got Lost.