DHONGAMUNDDA – How I Forgot Telugu When I Learnt Malayalam
When I was in the first grade, I spoke Telugu fluently. My parents were teachers in Nellore. I only have vague memories of my childhood, but Amma sharpens it whenever...
Kitchen Lessons
Elema would come home and sit on the swivelling blue chair in the kitchen. It was broken, so she’d lean forward to balance herself on it. She’d wear a pink...
Hind Mundhe Gothilla
I was halfway through the eighth standard when my Hindi teacher, Mithra ma’am, suggested I take a language exemption. She was a tall, slender woman, around my grandmother’s age, with...
Why I Read
Psychology textbooks like to add these little fact boxes between chapters about how strange or unusual some tribes or cultures act. I think I’d fit into these boxes quite easily....
Minding My Language
“Asa.” There is. All evening, I have been saying the word in my head. At my grandparent’s house over dinner, I imagine my grandfather using the word. When I think...