The director of the wisconsin book festival. This is such a wonderful moment. The final event is the only one going on right now and its the only one that i get to sit down and actually watch. Its also really a great delight to me to be here celebrating the 15th anniversary of the wisconsin book festival and its also my fifth book festival so theres a minianniversary and there but its been an incredible day and credible audiences and credible questions and i am delighted that we are finishing. Just one note if everyone would turn off their cell phones so we are not interrupted and when you have a question and i know you will ask good questions please ask them from the audience speaker phone in the middle of the floor. We are on cspan today. This will be rebroadcast next saturday so we want to capture the questions as well as the talk. This book is not called one day this will matter so its an incredibly design book cover. Its called one day well all be dead and none of this will matter. I saw this book and i immediately said this is something we need to have on the screen. We need to be talking about younger peoples stories and we need to be talking about different voices and maybe that get talked about hope events like this the most often and this book really delivers. Its hilarious and heartbreaking and frustrating. Scaachi six takes us through her life and her experiences that she have that are eaten incredibly unique to her and every day. Its incredibly relatable and i think should be celebrated so help me celebrate scaachi koul. [applause] i love doing events on saturday night because my audience is usually all who dont drink. Theres literally no other reason for you guys to be doing this at 9 00 but i appreciate it. I spent the day in your fine city and i had eaten so much cheese. I feel like chet. But they tasted good. [laughter] you guys have so many white people. You know, like good for you, right . Everybodys got to have something. Im going to read from a chapter called which is a heman reference that nobody gets, but i get it. Im going to read about hair because i have a sickness and i hope you like it. If you dont, i dont care. My hair came in so thick and unrelenting and widespread that by 14 my mother was investing in implements to make removing it easier creams that are in the hair clean off the left with a rash electric contraptions my older cousin reassured me were virtually painless but plucked each hair out individually and various razors with different benefits one with builtin moisturizer, one you put around your days without cutting you, one that vibrated to really get at the root of the hair. The cousin who once set up my social media count once found that in mind mothers bathroom to use a tweezing implement to become as perfectly hairless as she always was. She brought me a cup of ice and recommended numbing the area first. She was 27 and i loved running my hand along her tan waxed arms for her part as they were all made so many hours a day and i could dedicate my entire life to eradicating the hair from my face and arms and thighs and calves. I found a thick black bear growing out of my making out like a shard of glass that i had somehow never noticed that impaled me. Look at it all afternoon in trying to decide who is actually my hair or a synthetic hair brush bristle that lodged itself into a part of my body for every sex ed teacher told me was physically impossible to grow hair there. None of my female friends reported back hair but all they said is sometimes their periods would hurt in the blood wasnt really that red pigment mother never suggested this happened either. Her skin was smooth and pour les les. It took me a few days before i could bring myself to pluck it. I felt so close to it like a Family Member i hated but i might grow to love. Theres something so carnal about pulling parts of your body out of yourself. When i did pull the hair off the route was twice as long as the visible section. I held it between my fingers yet another indication from my body saying you are not quite a woman inside or out. Little is worse to a teenage girl except maybe being overweight or single or not having enough friends are not getting invited to parties are not teen or being too or being a or not being a or being a smartass or not being smart enough and having hair where the world does not engage in habit. Rarely do you decide theres something wrong with you. Instead you get your future was someone whose the right combination aboard cruel and insecure to begin with. In the eighth grade junior high bowling james sat next to me in english class. He looks down at my harry limb to hair standing on end from static cling and compared it to his bald one. You are really harry he said with the same wrinkled face you might make if a lead role poll showed up to class and started rooting around in your backpack. The adult version they might have retorted with how much of a shame it was that you are so weak it can grow chest hair while im perfectly capable of growing a full beard of an escaped convict with a 13yearold in me just squirmed until ive got enough time had passed. The school didnt have sideburns like me and i never bother to ask about the short hair from the tips of their noses. I spent many months considering whether this is the facial hair. Being a woman eyes felt shedding is a primal protection brick house at the devolution hasnt caught up to me and knowing that i dont need my hair to grow so long that i can braid it. Thats a knowing laugh. [laughter] for me tear his eyes meant shame shame. Imagine my surprise when girls and young women around the world started growing out their armpit hair easily the worst hair to let go except they be facial hair and some pathetic stance against the patriarchy. Lena dunham was doing it by the cyrus was doing it and dying it and it was a movement that launched a thousand on line pieces. It was heartening somewhat to watch women take control of their bodies to give a hearty after you as men have been doing for centuries. I considered it briefly the same way considered getting my own tattoo when i have to drink a thick green juice. Its the same kind of feminism that settles in that they can pretend following the status quo until you were a tank top and expose your true self. I was traditionally beauty but look at this feminine physique underneath. Im going to eat all my. The same way i denied the hair on the rest of my body. Here is a statement and mine is louder, darker and always willing to go away. How nice it must feel to be so free, so when burdened by the politics of your hair that you can do whatever you want to it, shave it, it diet or let it exist and be free. Its easier to rebel against hair or fewer women generally in the first place. My hair, brown hair is politicizing every direction. Its either unearthly glory hair so perfectly people want to buy it in bags or an unholy and crude display of the most aggressive kind of femininity. When lena dunham grows ever armpit hair not one with much weight for it to really matter. You have to have been born with hair baggage that nagging reminder that will come out of your body naturally and could be repulsive or tell people youre deserving and that your sexuality can only exist in specific vacuum of kings generous acceptance. If i wash it, it is soft and silky and hold shape and blow dries quickly shape with a soft flip at the front. I have, in a word, your blooded indian hair. The other kind of women turn into sections. My hair is perfect. I know it is perfect because women usually, white women, asked me how i make it so. To use a particular oil . What about dry shampoo . Is that the secret . I bet you drink a lot of Coconut Water . I once fell asleep on the bus only to wake up to a small child putting my head. She told me it was soft like a barbies hair which might have been an insult but her hands are clean so i let her keep doing it. [laughter] of course the secret to indian hair is to merely be indian and have decades of systemic racism and fear of the other beauty, anxiety and repulsion movement into your roots. I use oil to but thats a ploy from indian cosmetic companies create products that protect you, too, could process the sheen and length that we got from our mothers. Who got it from their mothers and so on and so on. Mostly it just helps to be browned. Nevertheless my hair is perfect only by a rigid and admittedly colonial standard, the status quo leave us to [inaudible] but only on your head and and light in color, all the better. We like straight hair, busy or naturally curly hair he scares we tell them their grades are unprofessional at work, then we sold them for relaxing their locks are getting weeds because you cant win unless you were born with the right kind of hair. I believe my hair is perfect only because white girls and stupid boys have told me it is perfect. This is my physical worse, i am judged attractive only by what grows out of my head and only when that is compared to hair we decided is bad. The prices unwanted Hair Everywhere else. I cut my hair infrequently, once every six or eight months. Recently i cut six inches off and my hair was still long enough to graze my nipples. The sight of so many little icebergs. Regardless when i saw the hair on the floor of the salon i felt like samson, like i have lost the only thing that made me powerful, one of my one traditional t acceptable beauty marker gone. Its as if the longer i grow, the thicker my hair on my head is, the more people will notice the hair on the rest of my body is in a different universe. My perfect main by somebody s elses anders always means i have an imperfect body covered in dark fuzz, white girls to how my hair is so silky that it braids like a calm but rarely do irthey admire the way my hairline bleeds into my eyebrows and how my tiny head, wolflike and swarthy. Other women like my secrets to know them, the only answer that pleases them is i dont know, avocado but if i ishave my face multiple days, i stopped getting invited to parties. In my biology class my teacher gave us a checklist of dominant versus recessive alleles to show us how babies come out looking the way they do. The subtext from this nationalistic teacher occurs to me years later is that we would often and up looking more darker and more vague than we did in the past. I wasnt unhappy about it but she did express concerns regarding the eventual loss of the blueeyed and natural blonde. We were paired up with the opposite sex so we could compare genes to determine what our childhood would look like. To really drive this home, a Public School teacher in suburban calgary told her teenage students to pretend they were going to have sex with each other and they are biologically likely babies. I was one of eathe only ethnic kids in the class, genes are already steamroller and everybody elses. My partner eric, a white boy who personified one side of the checklist with me. When we arrived at hair on fingers or knuckles, i looked down at my knuckles for what might be the first time. Spurting from the meat of my fingers were soft strands of dark hair. How had i never noticed such a grotesque feature. I always noticed my legs were harry, my upper lip was soft enough to catch flies but i had overlooked this new barbarity. I dont have any, eric said looking up at me. I nodded and said, me neither and we moved on to eye color, is a green would be trampled by my molasses, another thing i couldnt hide. When i got home, i shaved my fingers for the first time, cutting every single knuckle in the process. I am comfortable with not somewhat bored by my hair routine as an adult. My armpits continue to wage war against themselves, requiring a shave once a day, more if i owant to feel moot and unblemished. Sometimes i sprout here when i raise my arms and it will lovingly i assume ask have you shaved today . A normal person would just answer but since i have typically shaved earlier that day and im already angry at the inevitability of my bodies outrage against him and call him weak and make fun of his beard and ive been rushed to the bathroom to shave again. Meanwhile he will continue cooking or cleaning or reading or doing whatever productive thing he was doing before he asked a question that passed my dubody. I was just asking, hell say when i return in tears but at least it keeps me busy. I shave my sideburns, jawline and upper lip so i dont become more than fuzz. My knees are a particular hotbed. I check my body for stray hairs that dont along the way other women check formals or months. And brazilian waxes worked for a long time, a regimen to the appointment every five weeks. Here, id say to a nice long lady holding a tongue the presser, here is money to put your face close to my madonna i feel more comfortable with somebody else doing it for a very different reason. New to oral sex here, okay. I didnt start getting brazilians until my early 20s. How do you know where to stop with the brazilian when the rest of your body is covered in hair anyway . Do i get last like a strawberry blonde mike and hope it doesnt look like i want to do a controlled fire where do ti go for it , really indepth and poor wax over my body with the aim of making me as slick and supple as a condom with excellent eyebrows. Thats the other great thing about my hair. Its all over my face and body for once i separate them, my brows deserve to eliminate. My first wax was made, and talked to a flirt who owned the salon next to a burrito joint and i liked her because she ran so much during our waxes he ignored every grunt and squeak and [bleep] that would be squeezed out of my body every time she tore off f another strip. Im going to palm springs, she echo into my vaginae, spreading wax on my leg. It is me and the girls and she ripped off enough hair to fill our hamster and i make a sound that resembled the air being let out of the balloon and she told me about the hotel. Its on the beach and im going to have a margarita. Some women will tell you waxing is not as bad as they say or some kind of necessity if you want to be a sexual creature. Thankfully neither, is a procedure that can be more simply quick with the right person or drown out and its not essential either. The internet and television and movies and the wworst in your life will tell you your viability as a sexual object relies on your willingness to interact with these exercises in true femininity. Those places can also demonstrate how very little or femininity is. A little being a woman have to do with what youre buying us naturally. And while im not a straight man, i have known enough of them to know that most of them are just happy if your vaginae doesnt have any teeth. Many of us women engage in traditional beauty practices for ourselves and ourselves only. My nails are filed shark with no one other than myself and i wear painful shoesbecause i like stomping around like a powerful, wobbly giraffe. Plenty of other routines are lines we draw so people will consider beautiful. Which is why it was so heartened to watch women grow out there prepare , however briefly it lasted these are pushing it back against something they didnt want to do , at least they were having fun and asking so themselves if theyre one th good reason for me to do this. Do i do it for anyone other than the world outside my body . I like it. I like letting them do it. The day after james pointed out my bushy arms in junior high, i considered adding arms shaving to my lengthy list of cherokee. Most of my rocousin did it and they were all a decade older and objectively beautiful and untouchable. I once asked them where they should stop shaving, the arbitrary line that stops you from saving your entire body. Its not like i have back hair, my cousin said as i thought about all of my back hair. They that week i ran a razor across a patch of my arm leaving it frictionless and tan and soft. What was under there . Why didnt anybodytell me . Look how feminine and delicate i look. It helps for me to be beautiful and worthwhile. Ididnt shave more of it off. I didnt want james to notice he had gotten to me so i thought i wait for the summer the way i did with my mustache and brown so everyone would forget i never had hair in the first place. In class, james noticed of my forearm and he laughed at me. Did you try shaving your arm because i told you you were harry . James works in finance now, lives in boston. We are all eventually punished for our sins. I still shave my knuckles i decade after i first noticed the hair. Ive mastered the art of dragging a razor over my finger, never going all over it twice for fear of razor burn. I dont cut myself as often as i used to and security get easier with every passing year. It never slows down, never listens to me. Its a quintessential encapsulation of running after an unattainable goal. Weve turned this fact about our bodies into something ugly. I wonder while im in the shower running a razor across my fingers even if i dont see any hair what it is im trying to prove, that im a woman . A real live woman with a aroma spa. I leave the house with knees that purple, ill run into james, is still careless face grinning at me about how stupid i am for trying to pretend someone i feel im not. You tell me i am ugly and not worthy of being out in the sun, that i dont deserve love or to be in the presence of a white boy like him, one might like me and let my sideburns grow down my face. Then i will cut myself right on the joint and the water swirling into the top train will run there. Thanks. [applause] the only other thing i was thinking, quickly, in the book theres a lot of stuff about my dad who is like an exhausting nightmare person. Every chapter ends with an email from him. He texts me now once a day asking for a cut of my exams because he thinks he has sold the book. But itheres one email in the first chapter that he sent me when i went to a trip five years ago now and it is just so good that i feel like i want to read it. So you guys can know what tmy life is been like and why im like this. He sent me the email the night before i left, he hasnt spoken to me forabout a week because he was so upset. What was the rationale in choosing the country you were going to . Is it some sort of getting back at me . You know i will be up for all the training you are gone. Your brothers did not go anywhere this exotic. What did i do to you . I did exactly what you wanted to do in terms of your post i school education. Is this hostile you are in going to be safe . You have to share a bathroom . What other places are you visiting . Or is nothing i can do except stay at night and days while you are away, no other kid has done this. Why . Why . May some heavenly force be your protector. I have been rendered speechless, apparently not. Who are other people going with you . Why could you not visit home for this number of days. You have your whole life ahead of you to go to these places. Thanks. I think were doing questions . Theres a mic in the middle. If you dont have anything to ask, ill just go home. Technically calgary, who asked that . I live in toronto, my parents live in calgary for my mothers, i guess. Whatever people dont ask questions, i always like, i cured racism, great. Im just going to assume thats what happened here. Libby, rude. She got in a fight with mydad. She wanted, i dont know why, razor blade needs party because she seven, i caught her raising because she looked like one when she was born. Thats her name now. But she wanted my father to buy her pass. Because quote, i like the idea of falling down. I dont know what that means. But she wanted kneepads so she can simulate falling down. And my dad was not about it because he thinks im immigrant so everything and extravagance so, maybe one or . And so they got in like a huge fight and she looked at him and said you only do this the things you want to do and stormed off, perfect. I think its important that somebody in my family all my father to task. It happens to be a key tiny blueeyed nskind of white lady. Whos seven. So great. So suck them up. [inaudible] how do i deal with my dad . The email for example. I didnt answer that email and i went on the trip and i came back and we never discussed it, right dad . With a big like, im not going to deal with this person but he gets upset in the moment. Last chapter is about how he gave me the silent treatment for months because i started dating an old white person which stressed him out. And then when we got engaged a few months ago, my dad was telling the family that he knew it was going to work but admitted he met him. I like, you did me in for four years. So in aisle and also i take a lot of ativan so thats helping. I know you guys dont have specialized healthcare here but really, strongly recommend investing in that one drug. Every time i come to the state ive got to get some healthcare data in there. You guys are fine, your presence. How did you vote here . Theres a real, im curious. No one is telling me. Oh yeah. Okay, i know how did wisconsin do . It was you, okay. Good to know. Thats not better. Oh. Voter suppression, i heard all about that. Good for you guys. Thats fun. We elected a haircut. Same thing but different. I was going to say. At least it was a good haircut. Is that it . My god you guys, hi, what do you got . [inaudible] how long have i been writing . I guess i started about 14 but not well, like i might be bad at it now for all i know. But probably about 14 and then i started freelancing for money by 17. And then i went to journalism school. No, you know why . I know this is a dumb answer but i hate standing for long periods of time. The thought of doing that is stressful to me. Yes, its because of the shoes. I no, i just dont like standing. I dont think jtheyll let me carry around the podium. Also, im not that funny. So im saying this and i know im saying this as a white woman, good preamble. So your essay collection is coming from a woman of color to see more and more people from different backgrounds writing funny books. At least five of us. And you are in such Great Company with the people on the back of your book. You have people like Samantha Irby on their whos another hilarious woman of color. Shes got amazing essays. You feel as though in your essay collection you give a voice to your background, are you okay with it being, an indian woman whose writing these things or someone with an indian background writing these things or do you just, would you rather your self these things . I dont know if theyre , different. I mean, its a sbig question. I think theres an unbearable kind of burden put on women of color because we got to talk for everybody. Its must be so nice being a white dude because you can help people and their life, its just the one guy. Another great thing you guys are really excelling. But there is something really shady about having to bear that burden. I dont think about it a ton. I think its makes for bad writing if you feel like you have to talk for a lot of people and i cant. The Brown Community y is incredibly, i hate this word because it doesnt mean anything but its diverse. My brown this doesnt speak for different people in india, im also fair skin. My family is from a region of india embroiled in war. Its a very frcomplicated thing. So i dont say that. I think if you read it you take anything from it, im so glad that i cant carry that around because its futile. And i will fail and everybody will be disappointed and id rather you have no expectations and just fail anyway. And coming with the hope and also be disappointed but also, the book is so cheap so whatever. When did you get interested in writing about ways and the personal and your own story or have you always been doing that . Im a narcissist so that was really embroiled. And in these here, while im touching my boots, and these breasts. I think its unavoidable to write about race and in a lot of context. I dont know how i would have parked on that in some ways, im able to not do it. T i just choose not to so probably , by 22 i feel like i spent a lot of my teenage years and my early adulthood trying not to be ethnic and finding out how i can trick people. Look at my face, its not possible but i wanted to be a white lady and a sort of slide by and i was like, maybe ill take up feminism and i realized it wasnt back, it was much more complicated for me. And then when i realized i wasnt going to, like i couldnt afford a nose job, and my skin is not going to o change this color and im so mushy you guys, theres nothing i can do so then i might as well work as i have work. And im mad all the time so this is a great thing g to be mad about. And how did this become relevant . Very prescient. Hello. So your dad, when he gave you that email, are you used to it by now . Ativan, that little pill. Put it on your tongue, its like magic. Im sad a lot when he does it. But i think, i dont know if happening youre in your family, i find the silent treatment is a big thing dads of color. And its bizarre, they either yell at you constantly or stop speaking to you altogether. For me, thats a preferable option. But i think ive learned something very important about my parents and about parents generally speaking which is that they are like spiders. Which is, they are much more afraid of you and you are of them. So when they act out, they skitter around. Thats their panic response so you just need to be large t and get a very newspaper. And you will kill them. So the patient part is the hardest part area but they will always lose because theyre not good at it. Like, they can actually, for the most part, its hard for them to actually cut you out for whatever perceived thing. Which is coming from a person whose growing up in a strict household. I remember once my brothers and my dad said it was like writing by the grace of god that they wanted to leave the house because if we wanted to live there forever, he would never have been able. Be mad at us until he was dead. Keeps livingso , but that he had really motivated kids but parents are weak im telling you. Get a glass and track them. Same thing. This is great advice. Hello. You see yourself ever becoming apparent . I like 85 percent bile so i dont know. I dont know if i can gestate. I have a cat. Thats the same, right . Yes. She will need to go to college. Im obviously starting a fund. I dont know, i dont think about that. Maybe it some terrible accident happened. I just feel like were at a point where the fussy undereducated mean brown women are the ones who have to repopulate, we are in a bad spot. So we should hope thats not happening. But ill think wabout it. Thats the first timeanyones asked me that question. Im not very nurturing, it doesnt usually,. You guys are so shy. [inaudible] no, its great cardio. Its also very hard on your heart. Well, yeah. My cholesterol is fine, my Blood Pressure is normal. I have very Firm Launches i think from clenching them in rage. But when i think about people who are, when people ask me about being angry i always think, why are you angry . Why dont you do it and ill be angry less if the rest of you pick up in the class which i havent seen a lot of that happening from white people in both countries. So you know, you do some of it and then ill, what do people do when theyre not angry. State, right . You look like someone makes a good pipe. I hate pie. Okay. I dont know. Reads poetry, i dont know. Ill figure it out but generally speaking, everybody should be a little pissed off, especially now. Thats a genetic issue. How much are you thinking about your familys response when you are writing . I dont and thats the problem. When your publisher sends you the full proof in your life , oh no. Thats not a great thing that i did. I think the nice thing is my mom doesnt really understand what i do shes like, we do it. She read the book but seems to not remember any of it. Sometimes people, and she would be like when did this happen . There was an entire chapter, it was 35 pages. I gave you one for free because they refuse to buy. I dont understand. And my dad read stuff if i tell him not to because he knows he can appreciate e that it exists in a vacuum in a place where he cant get to and i dont think you have a problem with a book about him, he just doesnt want to hear about for example my labia. Because i dont think he knows what that body part is and i dont want to have that conversation. In india is such a bad program in the 60s and its just sort of a bit. Its a bit tumultuous. I dont want to be the person to have that conversation. So he figured out that boundary. Brother ready and fhe told me it was perverted. So i was like, great. Thats ideal. [inaudible] low expectation, its all surprising. I get to go to places like fanfare for 28 hours. And eat a bunch of cheese. Love that shes here. And as a canadian im very blessed with the current situation. You guys do a good job. Not quite sweet but we will work on it. What sparks an idea and what was her day life creating an essay . I think about whats embarrassing. And then i write it down. Then my editor looks at and says you cant write that. And she fixes it. I dont have one. Its just come together quite organically. I think we had the proposal was completely different from what the book ended up being. I had about four chapters that we knew that were going to go in and as we were working on it took me a year. Other things are starting to interconnects and piece together and while i was working on it, i had to go to indian for a wedding and that ended up being three chapters because god, those are exhausting. By the book, youll know about it but that not being a piece of it and then my relationship was shifting and things with my dad were getting dicey these things work delays. I always a with a personal essay you have every year maybe one really good personal essay but other than that, the rest can be considered filler because you have to first when you are younger live in due stuff, you have to mess up and things have to be bad sometimes you with your writing four or five collections by the time you are 25. I know. Very rarely can you pull that off. Theres a few writers who can, sam irby is so good and shes, shes also older so she has like this long history and a crazy life to pull from and david sarris does the same thing where his, his memories are so vivid and insane. He was raised by wolves. So he can do that. I i grew up in a really mundane way so ive got 10 good stories and now i will go back into the shadows and not doing anything for a while because i have nothing. Well, i have stuff but ive got to wait. My dad has to die and then i will get another one. Hes going to, im not saying i hope he does, im saying when he does. You guys are so nice, its dreadful. Theres like this, this is the thing. Theres a misnomer about canadians being polite and were not, were passiveaggressive. But you guys are chatty, were not chatting. I want to, i went to a restaurant and eight people kept talking to me. This is not the universal signal for leave me alone. Maybe thats it, you guys dont know social cues which are great. Your shoes are good so thats all that matters. Thats the one thing i learned about the state. I dont know. Cities can be segregated and often events are not the most diverse. So i dont know. You guys tell me whats your racial breakdown, i dont know. Boundaries aggregated but like boy, this is very caucasian. Which is bad, its just talking about that. Okay. Good. What did we learn . Thanks for having me, thanks to you. Just go by my book. Thank you so much all coming tonight. That includes debris of the 15th annual anniversary of the wisconsin festival. Please by her book, thats when theyre all here. We will see you tomorrow at, thanks so much. [applause]. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you todayby your cable or satellite provider. Joining us on book tv is biographer elliott. In world war ii off the coast of alaska. He was on several missions because he was trained