Good evening, everyone, this is such a wonderful moment in the day, the final event is the only one going on right now and its the only one i get to sit down and actually watch. It is also really great delight for me to be here celebrating the 15th anniversary, the wisconsin book festival, my fifth book festival, a mini an anniversary and im delighted that we are finishing with such a call. If everyone would turn off cell phones so we are not interrupted tonight, when you have a question, i know you will ask good questions, please ask them from audience microphone in the middle of the floor, we are on cspan today and this will be rebroadcasted next week, saturday, we want to caption the questions as well as the talk. Ththis book is not called one dy this will matter though it is incredibly welldesigned cover. I saw this book and i immediately said this is something that we need to have ong screen. We need to be talking about younger peoples stories and we be talking about different voices and maybe get talked about at book events like this most often and this book really delivers and hilarious and heartbreaking and frustrating ways, scaachi takes us through her life and thoughts and experiences that she has that feel both incredibly unique to her and every day it is incredibly relatable and i think should be celebrated, so please help me celebrate scaachi koul. Ing love doing events saturday night because the audience is virgins that do not drink because theres no reason for you to be doing it at 9 00 oclock, but ith appreciate it. I spent the day in your fine city and ive eaten so much cheese and i feel like shit. [laughter] but they tasted good. And, you have so many white people, but good for you, everybody has to have something. [laughter] im going to read from a chapter called mr. Beast man to you, a he man reference that nobody gets but i get it. And im going to read about my pubic hair because i have a sickness and i hope you like it, but if you dont, i dont care. [laughter] my hair came in so thick, creams la burn the hair clean off but leave me with rash, my cousin reassured me were painless but plucked each hair outrt and various razer with different benefits, one that reat a timed around your knees without cutting, one that vibrate today really get at the root of the hair. The cousin who once set up social media account once sat with me in my mothers bathroom to using tweezing implement. She brought me a cup of ice and recommended numbing the area first, she was 27 and i loved running my hand along her tanned waxed h arms. I foundhi a thick black hair growing out of my nipple sticking outut like a chard of glass that i somehow never noticed. I looked at it all afternoon trying to decide if it was actually my hair or if the synthetic hair brings sell had launched itself into a part of my body where every sexed teacher told me it was physically imfootball grow lair there. None of my female friends reported back with hair, sometimes the periods would hurt and the blood was red. Everything was w a lie. Theres something so carnal, and when i did pull the hair out, the root was twice as long as the visible section. I held this iceberg between my fingers, yet an indication from my body saying, you are not quite ady woman inside or out. Little is worst to a teenage girl except maybe being overweight or single, not having enough friends or not getting invite today party or not being sexy or not being smart enough and having hair where the world doesnt think you should have it. In the eighth grade, bully in track, forearms bumped and looked at hairy limb. Youre really hairy, he said with the same wrinkled face you might make if a literal wolf showed up to class and started rooting around in t your backpa. How much of a shame that he couldnt grow chest hair while i was capable of growing the full beard of an escaped convict, but the 13yearold me squirmed until i thought enough time passed to put sweater down. I havent heard them talk about black heads and spent many months considering whether this was facial hair, being a woman i have always figured, have been shedding the layer of protection, how is it that evolution hasnt caughtio up wih me and knowing that i dont need my butt hair so long that i can braid it. [laughter] thats a knowing laugh. For me hair has always been shamed, imagine my surprise when girlsme and young women started growing armpit hair, the worst hair to let go except maybe factual hair, some feminists stance against patriortic and launched online pieces. It was heartening to watch young women take control of their bodies, let forearms permitted the way men considered, i considered iti briefly, the sae way i considered getting tattoo when i happened to drink a thick juice, the feminist statement just subtle enough that you can pretend you are following the status quo until you wear a tank top. Look at this feminist turned out to be. Im going to eat all my bras. I didnt. The same way my hair on my body. Hair is a statement, but mine is louder, darker, always willing to go away, says too much about me to be affected by mere trends. How nice it must feel to be so free, so unburdened by the politics of your hair that you can do whatever you want to it, shave it, cut it, die it or just let it exist very free, its easier to rebel against hair norms unburdened in the first place. Its either unearthy glory, people want to buy it in bags or unholy and most aggressive kind of femininity. Its a stance, not one with much weight for it to really matter, for your rebellion to extend outside of yourself, you to have been born with hair baggage, that nagging reminder that what comes out of your body naturally makes you repulsive or tells people that youre deserving of a slur or sexuality can only exist in a specific vacuum of acceptance. Black and brown women know this in two different ways but few others do. Its a rebellion, a brown women does its a mutiny. I have a great set of hair. Im prepared to be insecure of every part of my body. Dont get me started on my weird veins but my hair is perfect. Look at it. Its long and thick and perfect mix of rich chocolate brown and red low life. If i wash it its soft and silky, blow dries perfectly straight with flip at the front. I have pureblooded indian hair the kind of women turn into extensions and glue into scalps. My hair is perfect because women, white women ask me how i make it so perfect. Do you use a particular oil, they ask, what about dry shampoo, is that the secret, who is your hair dresser, i bet you drink a lot of coconut water. I once fell asleep on the bus only to waking up child petting my hair which told me that was soft, i let her keep doing it. [laughter] but, of course, the secret to indian hair so to merely be indian and repulsion woven in roots. I use argain oil, suggest you to possess the shine, strength, got it from their mothers that got it from their mothers, mostly just helps to be brown. Nevertheless my hair is perfect only by a rigid and admittedly colonial standard, the status quo leads us to believe hair is good but only in head but enlightened color all theea together, if you like straight hair, frizzy, naturally curly hair scares us, scariest of all is hair of black people, we think we are entitled to touch. It in public, scold black women letting natural hair grow out and rescold them for relaxing locks 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 girls told me this is perfect. This is my physical worst, im judged attractive only by what grows out of my head. The price then is unwanted hair everywherero else. [laughter]s i cut my hair once every six or eight months. Recently i cut 6inches and my hair enough to graze my nipples, regardless when i saw the hair on the floor of the salon i feel like i had lost anything that made me powerful, my one traditionally beautiful marker gone. The longer i go the thicker the hair on my head is, the less white people will notice that the hair on the rest of my body is in a different universe, my perfect main, by someone elses standards always, means i have an imperfect body covered in dark fuzz, white girls like to admireco how my hair is so silky that it braids, but really do they admire the way my hairline bleeds into my eyebrows and other women want my secrets to no split ends, i dont know, avocado, but if i let slip that i shave my entire face, i stop getting invited to parties. In my eighth grade biology class our teacher gave us a checklist. The sub text from this particular nationalistic teacher appeared to me only years later that we would all end up looking darker and more vague than we did in the past, she wasnt exactly unhappy about she did express some concern regarding the eventual loss of blue eye and natural blond. We were paired with someone with opposite set so we can compare genes. Iwill drive it home, public hom, told teenage students, i was one of the only ethnic kids in the class, my genes were steamrolling everybody elses. My partner eric, white boy, went down to genetic checklist with me. When we arrived at hair on fingers or knuckles i looked down at my hands for what seemed like the very first time. Standing up from the meet of my fingers, soft black strands of hair, it was horrified. How had i never notified a grotesque feature, i always knew my hairs were hairy, but i had overlooked this new barbarity. I dont have any, while i hid my hair, i nodded and said, me neither, we moved onto eye color, his green would be maliced. I shaved my fingers for the first time cutting every single nubbing until the process. I am comfortable with if not somewhat bored by my hair routines as adult, armpits continue to wage war against themselves requiring shaif once a day, more if i really want to feel smooth and unblemished. Sometimes my partner will notice sprouts of hair when i raise my arm and will lovingly i assume, did you shave today. A normal person would just . Answer, im angry, i will rage against him and call him weak and make fun of his beard and then rush to the bathroom to shave again. Meanwhile he will continue cooking oren cleaning or reading or doing whatever productive thing he was doing before he innocently asked a question that unpacked my worst instincts about my body. I wasil just asking. At least it keeps me busy. My legs need attention every two days, my knees are particularly hot bed for pin straight black puerto ricos. I check my body for stray hairs and brazilian wax has worked for a long time, regiment every five weeks. [laughter] new to oral sex here, okay. I didnt start getting brazilians in early 20s. How do you know where to stop when the rest of the body is in hair anyway. Do i get a wax, or do i just really go for it, like really invest d and pour wax in entire bodyo two aim making my slick with condom with excellent eyebrows. Thats the other great thing about my hair. Its all overr my face and body, once i separate them my brows deserve display case. She would ignore every grunt, squeak and farther out of my body. Spreading wax on my lips, its me and the girls and rip up enough hair and i make a sound that resembled like the air slowly being led out of a balloon and she tell me about a hotel and its on the beach and im going to have a margarita, at least one of us is having fun. Some women will tell you that waxing is either not as bad as they say or some kind of necessity if you want to to be a sexual creature, frankly its neither. Mercifully quick with the right person and not essential either, the internet and television and movies and the worst influence in your life will tell you that your viability is sexual object relies to interact with exercise and true femininity. Those places can show how little a woman has to do with what your body does naturally. While im not a straight man, most of them are happy that your vagina dont t have any teeth. My nails are filed sharp and painted bright for no one other than myself and i wear painful shoes. Plenty of other routines are lines we draw so people would consider us beautiful which is why it was so heartening to watch women grow out pit hair however briefly it lasted,. Ushing back against something they didnt want to do, at least they were having fun and asking themselves is there one goodhe reason for me to do this, do i do it for anyone outside of my body . I liked it even though i couldnt do it. The day after james pointed out bushy arms, i considered adding arm shaving, most of my cousins did it and they were a decade older and objectively beautiful and livee and touchable, i once askeday them where they stopped shaving, the arbitrary line that stops youmo from shaving entire body, its not like i have back hair, my t cousin said as i thought about all of my back hair. [laughter] later that week, i ran a razer across patch of my arm leaving it frictionless and soft. Thats whatir was under there. Why didnt anybody tell me, look at how feminine and delicate i look. I didnt shave more of it off, i didnt want james to know he had gotten to me. I figured i waited till the summer so everyone forget i ever had hair in the first place. In class, though, james noticed the ball patchev and he laughedt me. Did you try shaving your arm because i told you that you were hairy . James works in finance now. He lives in boston. We are all eventually punished for our sins. [laughter] i still shave my knuckles, never going over it twice to avoid razer burn, i dont cut myself as often as i used to, maintaining insecurity gets easier with every passing year. The hair never stops coming back and never slows down and never listens to me. We turn this basic fact about our bodies into something ugly. I often wonder while im in the shower running razer across the fingers what it is im trying to prove and to whom but im a woman, a reallife woman with aroma spa. If i leave the house with knees that pickle i will run into james, how stupid i am on trying to pretend im someone that im so clearly im not. He will tell me that im ugly and not worth being out in the sun, that i dont deserve love or in the presence of white boy like him, one who might like me if i didnt let side burns down my face and i will cut myself right on the joint and the water swirling down the drain will be red. D. Thanks. [applause] the only other thing i was thinking that ipp read quickly,n the book theres a lot of stuff about my dad whose like an exhausting nightmare person. [laughter] every chapter ends with email from him. He text me now like once a day asking for a cut of my advance because he thinks that he has sold the book which o is not wrong, but theres one email in the first chapter that he sent me when i went to ecuador for a week on a trip. This was five years ago now and it is just so good that i feel like i just want to read it so you guys can know what my life has been like and why im like this. [laughter] he sent me theas email the night before i left, he hadnt spoken to me aboutbe a week because i was so upset i was going on the trip. Ethis is the email. What was the rationale of getting the country you are going to . You know i will be up in the period that you are gone. Your brother did not go into anywhere thats this exotic. What did i do to you . I did everything i needed to do, is it possible that you are going to be safe . Do you have to share a bathroom, what other places are you visiting . I know theres nothing i can do except stay up nights and days while you are away. No other kid has done this. Why . A , why . May heavenly force be your protector. I have been rendered speechless, apparently not. Who are other people going with you . Why could you not visit . You have your whole life ahead of you to go to these places . Thanks. [applause] i think we are doing questions. Theres a mic in the middle but if you dont have fig to ask anythinge, to ask, i will just o home. Where to . I live in toronto, so wherever my mother is, i guess. Yeah. Whenever people dont ask questions, im always like i cured racism, great. Ii can leave. [laughter] im going to assume thats what happened here. Lippi, rude, she got in a fight with my dad, she wanted i dont know, shes my niece, shes 7, i call her raisin. This is her name now. She wanted my father to buy her knee pads because, quote, i like the idea of falling down. [laughter] i dont know what that means but she wanted knee pads so she could simulate falling down and my dad wouldnt buy them because he thinks its my dad is an immigrant so everything is extravagant than maybe water. She got in a huge fight and look at them and said, you always do things that you want to do and stormed off, it was perfect. [laughter] i think its important that somebody in my family hold my father to task and it happens to be this teeny tinny blueeyed kind of white lady who is 7, so, great, i hope she up. [laughter] how do you deal with your dad . How how do i deal with my dad . [laughter] like the email, for example. I didnt answer that email and i went on the trip and i came back and we never discussed it. My dad is like a big im not going to deal this sort of person but gets really upset. The last chapter in the book is about how he gave me the silent treatment b for months because i started dating an old white person which stressed him out and when we got engaged a few bmonths ago, my dad was telling the family that he knew it was going to work the minute he met him and im like, you didnt meet him for four years. [laughter]d so denial and also i take a lot of adavan. Ii know that you dont have socialize health care but really strongly recommend investing in that one drug. [laughter] every time i come to the states i have to get health care dig, you guys are fine. Your president is great. [laughter] how did you guys vote here . Im curious. Yeah. Okay, how did wisconsin do . It was you. Okay, good to know. Thatsou not better. Oh. Yes, i heard about that. Good for you, guys. Thats fun. We elected a haircut, so [laughter] same thing but different. So did we. I was going to say. At least ours was a good haircut. [laughter] is that it . Oh, my god, okay, hi, what do you have . How long have i been writing . I started about 14 but not well, i might be bad at it now for all i know and youre all lying to me, probably about 14 and i started freelancing for money by 17, yeah. And then i went to Journalism School that year. Hi. No, you know why, i know this is a dumb answer but i hate standing for long periods of time and the thought of doing that is stressful to me. Yeah, its because of the shoes. Go fuck yourself, man, i dont like standing. I like having something in front of me, i dont think theyll let me carry a podium. Also im not that funny, you guys are just starved. [laughter] so im saying this and i know im saying this as a white woman, how do you good for you. So your essay collection is coming from a women of color which we are starting to see more and more people from different background writing funny books, at least five of us, i know, and youre in such Great Company with people on the back of your book, you have people like samantha urby who is another hilarious women of color who is writing shes nuts. Amazing essays. Do you feel as though in your essay collection you give a voice to your background, do you are you okay with it being, you know, an indian woman who is writing these things or someone with o indian background thats writing these things or would you rather just be yourself writing these things . I dont know if they are different. Okay. I mean, its a good question. I think theres an unbearable kind of burden that gets put on women of color because we have to talkha for everybody and must be so nice being a white dude because you get to you can kill people and theyre like, loner, just the one guy. Another great thing you guys are really excelling with, but there is something really shitty about having to sort of bear that burden. I dont think about it a ton because i think it makes for bad writing if you feel likey you have to talk for a lot of people and i cant and the Brown Community is incredibly hate this word because it doesnt mean anything, its really diverse. My brownness doesnt speak for different parts of india, im also really fair skin, we are from the north, from family is region embroiled in war, its a very complicated thing. I dont sayle that. I think if you read it and take anything from it, im so glad but i cant carry that around because its its futal and i will failm and everybody will be disappointed and i would rather you no a expectation and fail anyway instead of come in with hope and do appointed. Disappointed and also the book is so cheap here, so whatever. [laughter] when did you get interested in writing about race and the personal and your own story or had you always been doing that from that . Im a narcissist and i mean embroiled im touching my boobs. I think its unavoidable to write about race and a lot of contacts, i dont know how i would have knocked on that in some ways. Im able to not do it. But i just choose not to, so probably by 22 i feel like it started to become this big theme. I spent a lot of teenage years and early adulthood trying not to be ethnic and maybe i can trick people, how, look at my face, its not possible but i desperately wanted to be a white lady and sort of glide by and maybe i will talk about feminism, thats easy and i realized it wasnt that it was much more complicated for me and then when i realized that i wasnt going to i couldnt afford a nose job to look anglo and my skin is not going to change this color and god, im just so bushy, you guys, theres nothing i can do so i might as well go with what i have. And im mad all of the time. This is a great thing to be mad about. It hasnt become relevant. Im very present. [laughter] your dad when he gives you the silent treatment, are you used to it by now . Im telling you adivan, put it on your tongue and its like magic. Im sad a lot when he does it, but i think i dont know if this is happening in your family. The silent treatment is a big thing for dads of color. Its bizarre. They either yell at you constantly or they stop speaking to you altogether and neither is a preferable option. But i think ive learned something very important about my participants and about parents generally speaking which is that they are like spiders which is that they are much more afraid of you than you are afraid of them. Andav so when they act out and they skitter around, thats their panic response so you need to be patient and get a very large newspaper and you will kill them. [laughter] so the patient part is the hardest part but they will always lose because they are not good at it. Like they cant actually cut for the mostt part its really hard for them to actually cut you out for whatever mischief. Pi remember once my brother told my dad, it was by the grace of dad that he had two kids that we wanted to leave the house because if we wanted to live forever, he would have been mad at us until he was dead. Man, he keeps living, so but he had really motivated kids, but parents are weak, im telling you. [laughter] get a glass and trap them. Same thing. This is great advice. [laughter] hi. Do you see yourself ever becoming a parent . Nah. Im 85 bile so i dont know [laughter] i dont know if i can gestate, i have a cat, she will need to go to college. Im obviously starting a fund. I dont know, i dont think gabout that too much. Maybe. Terrible accident happen. [laughter] i just feel like if we are at a point where the fussy, undereducated mean brown women have to repopulate, we are in a bad spot, we just hope that doesnt happen, but i will think about it. Thats the first time anyone has asked me that question. Im not very nurturing. It doesnt really show up. You guys are so shy. Are you tired of a being ang . [laughter] no, its great cardio. [laughter] its also very hard on your heart. Well, yeah. I mean, my cholesterol is fine, and my Blood Pressure is normal. I have very firm haunches from clinching them in rage, but i mean, when i think about people who ut when people ask me abot me being angry, i always think, well, why arent you angrier, why dont you do it and i will be angry less if the rest of you pick up some of the slack which i havent seen a lot of that happening, mainly from my people in both countries, so, you know, you do some of it and then ill what dot people do when they are not angry, honestly, i have no idea, bake, right . Bake. You look like someone who makes a good pie. No. I hate pie. Okay. Dwell, i dont know what read poetry. I dont know, i will figure it out. Generally speaking i think everybody should be a little piss off specially now. Im pissed off but not 85 bile. [laughter] thats a genetic issue. [laughter] hi. How do you deal how much are you thinking about your familys response when youre writing . I dont, and thats the problem because then [laughter] then your publisher sends you the full proof and youre like thats not a great thing that i did. Ii mean, i think the nice thing my mom doesnt really understand what i do and she lets me do it and she read the book but seems heto not remember any of it so sometimes things will come up and she said, when did this happen, there was an entire chapter. It was 35 pages. I gave you one for free because they refuse today buy it. Like i dont understand. My dad doesnt read stuff if i telles him not to because i thik he knows, he can appreciate that it exists in a vacuum in a place he can get to. And i dont think he would have a problem with the stuff about him but he doesnt want to hear hmy labia because he doesnt kw what body part that is and indias sexed program in the 60s was sort of a bit tumultuous. I dont want to be the person to have the conversation with him. My brother read it and he told me it was perverted so i was like, great. Thats ideal. [laughter] whats the most surprising thing that [inaudible] that i did well . Because i didntit think it was. Good to have expectation. Its all surprising, surprising and weird and i get to go to places like this for 28 hours and [laughter] eat a bunch of cheese. Love the cheese here. And as a canadian im impressed with the curd situation. Not quite squeaky enough but we will work on it. Whats your process . Whats sparks an idea and whats your daylight creating an essay or piece . I think whats embarrassing and i write it down and the editor says, you cant write that and she fixes it. I t dont have one. This came together quite organically, i think we had the proposal was completely different from where the bookended up being. I had about four chapters that we knew were going to go in and as we were working on it it took me about a year, other things just sort of start today interconnect and piece together and while i was working on it i had to go to india for a wedding and that ended up being three chapters because god those are exhausting, ventures, you buy the book you will know all about it so that ended up being a piece of it, my relationship was shifting and things with my dad were getting dicey and the things fell into place. I say with personal essay, you have maybe every year, one really good personal essay but other than that, the rest can sort of be considered filler, specially when you are younger, you have to do stuff and things have to be bad and have to not work, if youre writing four or five collections by the time that youre 25, i dont know. Very rarely can you pull that off. There are a fewar writers who c. Shes also older, she has this really long history and crazy life to pull from and david was the same thing, his memories are so vivid and insane. He was raised by wolfs so he can do that. I cant do that. I have ten good stories and now i will go back into the shadows and not do anything for a while because i have nothing. Well, i have stuffff but i haveo wait. My dad has to die and then i will give another one. [laughter] hes going to, its not like im saying i hope he dies, im just saying when he does then theyll be another one. God, you guys are so nice its stressful. [laughter] this is the thing, theres a real misnomer about canadians being plank, we are passive aggressive. You guys are chatty. I went to a restaurant 8 people talked to me. Is this not the universal signal for leave me alone. We just dont get it. Maybe thats it, you guys dont have social cues which is great, your cheese is good, matter. Ll that im going to keep coming back to that. Thats the one thing i learned about the state. Madison whiter than oh, yeah. Well, i dont know. Cities can be really segregated and often book events are not the most diverse functions, so i dont know, you guys tell me whats the whats your racial breakdown, i i dont know. Calgary is segregated but boy, this is very caucasian, which isnt bad, its just caucasian. [inaudible] there you go. So i was right. [laughter] okay. Good. What did we learn . [laughter] thanks for having me. It was nice to see you, please go buy my book. [applause] here is a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to Washington Post. Topping the list is bestselling biographer walter recount of the life of leonardo de vinci. Also let trump be trump by corey lewandowsky. Fourth on the list is pulitzerprize winner ron, on the life of grant. Followed by fox news host brian brian kilmeade, history of battle of new orleans. A look at bestselling nonfiction books according to Washington Post continues with Vice President joe bidens promise me dad in which he recalls how he balanced his professional duties while attending to his ailing son and pete souza behind the scenes look on Barack Obamas presidency. Next is Oprah Winfreys insights from most meaningful conversations, for cis come of sundays and rapping up the look at bestselling books according to Washington Post is capital gains, a memoir from hgtv chip gyan gaines. Some of the authors will be on book tv. Cspan, television for serious readers. Here is our prime time lineup. 7 30 eastern, the connection between the brain and the world and argues that Virtual Reality enhances lives, then on book tvs afterwords, 9 00 p. M. , astronaut scott kelly recalls recordsetting time in space. Hes interviewed by form other nasa administrator charles bolden. Administrative director of the Manhattan Project and then later of Harvard University and we wrap up our prime time programming at 11 00, christopher scalia, son of the Late Supreme Court justice antonin scalia, share selected speeches of his father on law, faith and virtue. That all happens tonight on cspan2 book tv. Lliam hershey is the author. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible]. The strand was founded in 1927 in an area tt