#ed

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#being #being different #clothes #different #i

My parents had an arranged marriage, as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one, and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it, and I will continue to write about it. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#arranged #aware #came #continue #did

On the screen I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, and fallen buildings, and forests of unfamiliar trees into which East Pakistani refugees had fled, seeking safety over the Indian border. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#buildings #dusty #east #fallen #fled

Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#come #experience #indians #may #reminded

At 6:30, which was when the national news began, my father raised the volume and adjusted the antennas. Usually I occupied myself with a book, but that night my father insisted that I pay attention. ↗

— Jhumpa Lahiri

#attention #began #book #father #i

For that story, I took as my subject a young woman whom I got to know over the course of a couple of visits. I never saw her having any health problems - but I knew she wanted to be married. ↗

— Jhumpa Lahiri

#couple #course #got #having #health

I would take up any small job on the sets, just so that I could hang around with the hope of getting noticed. ↗

— Christine Lahti

#around #could #getting #hang #hope

For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase. ↗

— Jhumpa Lahiri

#another #corresponded #fit #four #happened

I can't tell you exactly how I found it. It was just a process of writing a lot of stories and reading a lot of stories that I admired and just working and working until the sentences sounded right and I was satisfied with them. ↗

— Jhumpa Lahiri

#exactly #found #how #i #just

I don't know why, but the older I get the more interested I get in my parents' marriage. And it's interesting to be married yourself, too, because there is an inevitable comparison. ↗

— Jhumpa Lahiri

#comparison #get #i #inevitable #interested