As an ignorant southerner in a "big city", some of my first experiences were a little daunting. Starting my job as a tester at AT&T gave me a lot of firsts - my first serious career role, first time hearing Hindi/Tamil/Telugu/Kannada/Malyalam, first Indian movie, first iced over parking lot, first Indian pizza from CanAm, among many others.
I had no idea my natural curiosity would lead me down the path I was about to take. I had come to Seattle married at a very young age, with some health problems due to a medication I had taken, and everything was about to change.
My coworkers were amazing. I was initially the only American female there, except for our Manager. There was one American guy who was your typical fist pumping dude. Another was a young nearly ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) Tamilian who seemed embarrassed to be Indian unless it was convenient to be Indian. I felt some sisterhood with a young and beautiful mom from Bengaluru who was very spiritual and dealing with her daughter growing up American. I've gone drinking and dancing with a few Telugu dads who lived in the same complex and had children the same age who were just amazingly nice hospitable people. I worked under a shy conservative Tamilian as one lead, and a hysterical creative guy with hair all girls would be jealous of from AP that grew up in Chennai and on occasion would attempt to teach me about the language and cinema of Tamil Nadu.
As I grew myself as a person in this new place, and expanded my horizons beyond the tiny world I had lived in, my thoughts and feelings changed about a lot of things about myself. I somehow found myself feeling attracted to some Indians. I learned to live on my own in a city far away from my home, and somehow became very comfortable and used to being around Indians. I started going to their parties, discovering Bollywood movies, learning a little Hindi and Tamil just from people speaking it and through music. This whole process was a lot more complicated, painful, and joyful than a simple paragraph, but those details aren't the focus of this blog, just a necessary note to understand my journey.
Then Holi 2011 happened.
I had no idea my natural curiosity would lead me down the path I was about to take. I had come to Seattle married at a very young age, with some health problems due to a medication I had taken, and everything was about to change.
My coworkers were amazing. I was initially the only American female there, except for our Manager. There was one American guy who was your typical fist pumping dude. Another was a young nearly ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) Tamilian who seemed embarrassed to be Indian unless it was convenient to be Indian. I felt some sisterhood with a young and beautiful mom from Bengaluru who was very spiritual and dealing with her daughter growing up American. I've gone drinking and dancing with a few Telugu dads who lived in the same complex and had children the same age who were just amazingly nice hospitable people. I worked under a shy conservative Tamilian as one lead, and a hysterical creative guy with hair all girls would be jealous of from AP that grew up in Chennai and on occasion would attempt to teach me about the language and cinema of Tamil Nadu.
As I grew myself as a person in this new place, and expanded my horizons beyond the tiny world I had lived in, my thoughts and feelings changed about a lot of things about myself. I somehow found myself feeling attracted to some Indians. I learned to live on my own in a city far away from my home, and somehow became very comfortable and used to being around Indians. I started going to their parties, discovering Bollywood movies, learning a little Hindi and Tamil just from people speaking it and through music. This whole process was a lot more complicated, painful, and joyful than a simple paragraph, but those details aren't the focus of this blog, just a necessary note to understand my journey.
Then Holi 2011 happened.
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