My pieces in Parabola, followed by my interests—and the poem For the Earth. Above is the cover page to Agni, Thief of Stars, from the Fall 21 issue of Parabola. Below is the retelling of this little-known, evocative tale. And below the text is my piece in the Winter 21/22 issue of Parabola, entitled, The Golden Coins of Kanishka. This piece is formatted as a slideshow; please click the image below to go to the next page.

I haven’t yet posted here my other pieces in Parabola but soon will. Do check back. :-)

MY INTERESTS: I’m pretty sure I’m the first classical Indian dancer born in Missouri, and one of the first born in the Midwest. For most of my life there was a very small Indian community in St. Louis; you could count those originally from the subcontinent with your two hands. So I had a typical Midwestern upbringing—yet within my home Krishna played his flute, Saraswati sang, and most significantly, Shiva, the enigmatic Hindu deity of life, death, and being, danced. My mom is Artistic Director of Dances of India, and my dad—who passed away in 2014—was a research scientist in love with music and dance. I grew up with music in house, always—and not just Indian music, but classical Western music, as my dad loved Strauss, Mozart, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsikov…

I graduated in French from Washington University. I lived in France for a year—before the internet. The first job I got after graduation was teaching English in Japan. So I lived in Yokohama for a year. And then, I went to graduate school in London—the London School of Economics—thinking I’d arm myself with an International Relations Degree..and …who knows? Be a diplomat?. Life had different plans for me, however…and that’s where I started to write.

Fast-forward a couple of decades…I’ve been writing and dancing for years! Not much doesn’t interest me—well, video games don’t! I cannot read enough about the science of this universe; mostly physics, but I love reading about biology, chemistry, paleontology…no matter how dark things can get in this world, I know the earth, much less the universe, is a marvel greater than we can ever understand.

I am currently working on a novel entitled The Palace of the Seven Stories, which is a novel for kids— and adults with a kids’ imagination— which deal with the mysteries of the universe along with the enigma of the human heart. I’ve been working on it for years…..it’s now in its near-final form. I think.

Among my favorite physics authors: Brian Greene, Sean Carroll, Carlo Rovelli.

Favorite podcasts: Lex Friedman, Sean Carroll’s Mindscape, PBS Spacetime

Beloved novels: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis DeBerniers. Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Room with a View, by E.M.Forster The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman

Adored kids’ books: The entire Little House on the Prairie series, which I’ve read innumerable times. The Phantom Tollbooth. Nancy Drew. The Boxcar Children. Narnia. A popup Alice in Wonderland given to me by my aunt. The glorious Amar Chitra Katha series, in which Indian kids used to learn the myths, stories, and histories of the amazing land of India. I still read those. :-) I’m sure there are many more kids’ books I loved, I used to read constantly as a child. I will keep adding them. The Cricket in Times Square!