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What's your Mental Health Story ?

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Late last fall, when Executive Director of Acton-Boxborough United Way ( ABUW ), Griet Dehandschutter, walked past an empty hallway that connects Terminal B and C on the departure level at the Boston Logan Airport, the amazingly powerful giant mural exhibit on Deconstructing Stigma  by McLean caught her attention. The exhibit carries stories and pictures of volunteers affected by mental illness and its stigma. These are stories of hope and resilience that the campaign participants shared with a view to offer a different perspective on mental illness. One of the displays showcases Vaidehi’s story. “I think the biggest problem in my culture is that mental illness is not thought of as a serious illness. It’s considered to be ‘all in your head’. Of course we know that’s not true”, says Vaidehi in one display. She is a writer and editor, who was raised in a South Asian family, and is referring to her anxiety and depression. These stories are powerful and Griet wondered if we could bring t
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Keeping it Real

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This past holiday season, while scanning for the top and recent movie titles on Netflix, the word “catfishing” caught my attention. I learned that catfishing means the deceptive act of creating fake online identities to lure folks into false relationships. The movie, “ Love Hard ”, where I encountered the word, was about online dating, which started with the protagonist finding herself the perfect match online after several failed attempts at dating before. Not only is this guy good looking, she is having interesting conversations with him, sharing many common interests and just feels such a strong connection with him that it feels too good to be true ! She travels across the country to surprise him. Instead, she is in for a rude shock when she finds out he looks nothing like his profile picture. The plot takes a few sweet turns when the guy promises to introduce her to the real person in the picture. She tries to date the other guy, but realizes that she had developed a connection wit
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The Festival of Lights

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We had been in the US for just a few years when our then six-year-old walked into the house announcing how we must have a turkey dinner that Thanksgiving. Everyone at school was talking about it, and he had just learned some great stories about Thanksgiving. We nodded at the stories without complicating the conversation with the questionable origins of the holiday , as we were ready to give this family holiday tradition a try. After all life is about new experiences and what can be better than when food and the whole family are involved! Having been raised in India, growing up we were exposed to Christmas and Ramadan besides other holidays. On moving to the US we used to put up a Christmas tree with presents, got kids’ pictures with Santa and enjoyed a feast with the family on Christmas day. But we had never celebrated Thanksgiving at home, although we knew about it at work and in the context of Black Friday shopping. Being busy working parents with young children at that time, Indian
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Journey to the Faraway Land

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In the early part of 2021, my friend Sunanda Sahay shared about a project she was spearheading as a part of and initiated by the Acton Historical Society (AHS) and the current co-president Doug Herrick. Over the past couple of decades, especially in the last decade, Acton has been getting a big influx of an Asian population, and the AHS wanted to record this journey through immigrant stories and experiences. The project focused on the two largest demographics, the Chinese American and the Indian American Actonians. The AHS hosted a session in May 2021 representing the Chinese American community that was led by Dawn Wang. A similar session, led by Sunanda, is planned to represent the Indian American on Sunday, Oct 3rd at 4 pm EST. When Sunanda explained the project to me in Jan 2021, I did a quick search to learn about the journeys of Indian American Actonians. About when and why they moved to Acton and what their experience was as a part of raising a family in Acton. I found next to n
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The Summer Oasis

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I held my breath as Prince Smokey bent his head tentatively for a cold drink from the pond. Had he dipped a few inches closer, he may have literally kissed the little froggie, perched comfortably on the lilypad, and I may have witnessed the rising of a majestic dog princess. Alas! That was not meant to be, as the frog elegantly took a leap away from the danger that it sensed through its impeccable peripheral vision, and ducked behind a sanctuary of rocks. On the hot, lazy summer day, this scene was a welcome addition to the monotony of the calming sound of the water meandering through the rocks and falling into the small pond in our backyard. This past summer was especially dry and I had always wanted a backyard water feature. The dry weather in addition to the loose rocks left over due to some backyard work were the major motivation for us to attempt to build a small waterfall in our backyard. After watching dozens of YouTube videos about building water features, I felt our project wo
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Age is just a Number

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I wasn’t there to witness this amazing feat. But when I close my eyes, it is clear like it is happening right in front of my eyes! I have seen this happen before, however this time it is more exciting for him. His small frame hunched over the keyboard with keys so worn-out that the letters have disappeared, his glasses that need correction that sometimes he can see better without them when his face is up close to the monitor and keyboard, patiently typing with two fingers as he has no typing skills; but his memories are crystal clear and larger than life, pouring out and filling the empty pages of the document to bring the stories of legendary cricketers, whom he hero-worshipped in his youth, to life. My Dad, (whom I call Baba) at age 82, just finished writing and publishing a book of his dreams. While he wrote about the legends, in my eyes he himself has become a legend! In March 2020, when I wrote about Baba in my post “ The Undeniable Roots ” that “When I read motivational quotes ab
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The Indian Wedding : A Short Story

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“It is a love-cum-arranged marriage”, Renu had informed her small, close-knit community in the outskirts of Rajkot, Gujarat. Her nephew was marrying a Punjabi girl, in an inter-cultural marriage, in the US. For those unaware of this Indian parlance, it is called a “love marriage” when the couple meet, get to know each other, fall in love and then decide to marry – before the family is involved. It is “arranged” when the family is the matchmaker and gets the couple together with an intention of getting them married. In India the latter is still a common practice. In the eyes of conservative folks in India, a marriage is a union between two families, and ensuring the couple has the blessings from both families, which culminates in a traditional wedding, is very important. So “love-cum-arranged” softens the jagged edges of the love (read as “youthful foolishness” through the orthodox tinted glasses) with the cloak of family acceptance and blessing! A few years ago, their community in Guj
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Skin Deep

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Last summer during the covid lockdown, while on one of my bollywood movie binges, I came across the movie Vivah. It seemed like a harmless, stress free, Suraj Badjatya goodie-goodie movie - even edging a bit towards calmly boring - and a perfect one to drown out covid anxiety. I hadn’t the faintest clue that within minutes the movie would turn irksome as the actor Seema Biswas playing “Chachi” coats her sweet little daughter’s face with layers of powder to make her look as fair as her cousin. Throughout its first part, the movie portrays Chachi’s jealousy and insecurity due to her daughter’s dark skin and how she is unable to see the bubbly and kind girl’s true beauty. To begin with I felt the movie was at best cringe-worthy, but it was interesting that the one scene left such a lasting impression in my mind that I am willing to give the movie some credit for subtly touching on Colourism. Anyone who has grown up in South Asia knows how deep Colourism runs in the region. Colourism is d
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