My sister has made it clear that she wants to spend more time in Paris once she’s done with her Watson Fellowship and med school. I always believed I knew why she would want to do this, but the following quote she put up on her blog is an interesting perspective:

“Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge- she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind. It was easier to turn her back on the two countries that could claim her in favor of one that had no claim whatsoever.”

-Jhumpa Lahiri, Namesake

This, oddly enough, makes sense. Coincidentally, I ordered this book from Audible last week and Heidi has started reading it.

On a related note, I also had an epiphany recently about why it’s important to see diversity on television. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a new VW commercial that features an Indian-American family. The commercial just makes me happy every time I see it, which is funny because I don’t really focus on my Indianness much. It’s such a small thing, but it truly makes me smile each time I see it. I have been thinking about my reaction to the commercial. I think it just was the fact that the commercial featured a fairly standard American family that happened to be Indian. It didn’t focus on it, it didn’t put anyone in a sari or play to the community in any other way. We’re part of the culture. It was nice to see it represented that way.