The State We Are In: Neither Here, There, nor in Heaven
Image courtesy of
Madhushree Ghosh. Illustration by Carolyn Wells.
Madhushree Ghosh | Longreads | May 2021 | 16 minutes (4,261 words)
Seventeen years ago, I receive the call most immigrants dread. It is inevitable, and yet. The call announces that my Baba, my indefatigable, extroverted, positively enthusiastic father, was felled by a massive cardiac arrest. On a heart that was the most giving one among all the people I’ve known. Life in America at that second continues without a ripple. Only, my life changes, divided into before-the-call and after-the-call.
I ask my now-ex. “Will you come with me?” like a child.
There’s a Lot More to Masala Chai Than Spiced Milk Tea Epicurious 4 hrs ago Leena Trivedi-Grenier
Three times a day there is a small pot of masala chai bubbling on my stove, threatening to overflow. Milky foam and spice-filled bubbles rise above the pot’s edges, flecked with black tea granules and just daring me to look away. When I inevitably do, to help my daughter find her shoe or to break up a fight, not two seconds later I’ll hear that unmistakable whoosh and sizzle as chai floods my stovetop and smothers the flame. It mocks me. Chai’s strength knows no bounds.