Anoop Judge's Blog

Winding down the Blog

Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone. —Billy Cox

My dear subscribers, readers, and supporters,

I wanted to let you know that I'm back to college again, pursuing a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing, while finishing up the fourth round of edits on my third novel, NO ORDINARY THURSDAY, which releases in August 2022. While I am honored to be the recipient of the Alumni Scholarship and the Advisory Board Grant for 2021-2023, the heavy workload means I cannot continue writing blog posts anymore.

I usually tried to write a thought-provoking post every two weeks or so, and found it very rewarding! I’ve been fortunate to have many people follow, and comment on my posts.

I appreciate the love and support you have given me, and I thank you for being an integral part of my publishing journey. Please continue to subscribe to this site to be notified of pre-orders for new book releases, and book signing events.

9/11 and its impact on Minorities

On a wet and windy day, during her junior year at high school as Najma Khan was holed up in the library, a photo flashed on her phone.

It showed a beheading by Islamic State militants along with a caption in red letters: “Go back to your own country.” Najma reported the incident but the school never tracked down the person who sent it.

It was not the first time she had been the focus of hatred, the 19-year-old who is my niece’s best friend said. With unshed tears at the corners of her eyes she narrated similar incidents, sitting next to her parents in their Santa Monica home. I noticed that a copy of the Quran was prominently displayed on a bookstand on the mantelpiece.

Najma who wears a hijab, (headscarf or other covering designed to maintain modesty) often gets angry glares from strangers and has had to endure questioning about whether she has a bomb in her backpack.

Asked when they thought such incidents became common, the Khan family didn’t hesitate.

“It started with 9/11,” said Najma’s mom, Hina, who immigrated to California from Pakistan in 1996.

“Overnight, we Muslims were no longer part of the great American ‘us‘—we were ‘them,’” Najma continues. She has a soft voice to match her paisley pink blouse, and her tiny gold hoop earrings wink in the faint sunlight from the window as she talks to me, while gesticulating with a set of pale pink fingernails.

“I was associated with the 19 hijackers even though they didn’t hail from Pakistan, but from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. And even though I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was told to go back to where I came from. Go back where, exactly? To Fremont?” she asks as she spread her palms in a gesture of disbelief.

In the months following the attacks, the difference between fiction and reality was irrelevant to a country gripped by chauvinism and Islamaphobia. The first hate crime was against someone who wasn’t even Muslim: Balbir Singh, A Sikh Indian gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona was murdered in the aftermath of the tragic events, because of his beard and brown skin. In my native Sikh community, my brother’s friend shaved his beard and stopped wearing a turban that Sep 13, after being assaulted at work. In 2013, the word “terrorist” was spray-painted on the walls of a Sikh temple in Riverside, only one year after a deadly shooting at another Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

Over the decades, younger generations of Muslim Americans have lived through terrorist attacks and witnessed an entire religion asked to decry every violent action done by every terrorist in countries they have never even visited in order to prove their people’s self-worth. Najma adjusts her cotton-candy-pink hijaab to make sure it is straight as she says, “on the radio and cable-news channels, non-Muslim ‘experts’ were talking about us as if we were exotic zoo animals, to be observed and dissected with equal doses of horror and curiosity.” She jokes about Hollywood’s portrayals of a Muslim woman falling in love with a white man and suddenly removing her hijab. Her laugh tinkles like chimes in the wind. “We don’t do that,” she finishes.

In 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks, nearly 500 anti-Muslim incidents of hate crime were documented in the U.S.—up from 28 the year before. The number has never returned to the pre-9/11 levels.

“If it’s a white shooter, he is mentally unstable. If it’s a brown shooter or someone who is Muslim, they’re automatically labeled a terrorist,” says Hasan Ali, my neighbor in Pleasanton, who migrated to the U.S. from Syria 35 years ago. “Seeing things like that is so frustrating.”

“It’s now been 20 years since 9/11. I’d like to think when I shop in a grocery store, people’s first impression of me isn’t, ‘I hope he’s one of the good Muslims.’ Instead, I hope they see a 55-year-old exhausted father of two and grandfather of one, who is trying his best to survive the pandemic, and who only happens to be Muslim.

9/11 and its impact on the Muslim Minority

On a wet and windy day, during her junior year at high school as Najma Khan was holed up in the library, a photo flashed on her phone.

It showed a beheading by Islamic State militants along with a caption in red letters: “Go back to your own country.” Najma reported the incident but the school never tracked down the person who sent it.

It was not the first time she had been the focus of hatred, the 19-year-old who is my niece’s best friend said, with unshed tears at the corners of her eyes as she narrated similar incidents, sitting next to her parents in their Santa Monica home. I noticed that a copy of the Quran was prominently displayed on a bookstand on the mantelpiece.

Najma who wears a hijaab, (headscarf or other covering designed to maintain modesty) often gets angry glares from strangers and has had to endure questioning about whether she has a bomb in her backpack.

Asked when they thought such incidents became common, the Khan family didn’t hesitate.

“It started with 9/11,” said Najma’s mom, Hina, who immigrated to California from Pakistan in 1996.

“Overnight, we Muslims were no longer part of the great American ‘us‘—we were ‘them,’” Najma continues. She has a soft voice to match her paisley pink blouse, and her tiny gold hoop earrings wink in the faint sunlight from the window as she talks to me, while gesticulating with a set of pale pink fingernails.

“I was associated with the 19 hijackers even though they didn’t hail from Pakistan, but from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. And even though I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was told to go back to where I came from. Go back where, exactly? To Fremont?” she asks as she spread her palms in a gesture of disbelief.

In the months following the attacks, the difference between fiction and reality was irrelevant to a country gripped by chauvinism and Islamaphobia. The first hate crime was against someone who wasn’t even Muslim: Balbir Singh, A Sikh Indian gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona was murdered in the aftermath of the tragic events. In 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks, nearly 500 anti-Muslim incidents of hate crime were documented in the U.S.—up from 28 the year before. The number has never returned to the pre-9/11 levels.

“If it’s a white shooter, he is mentally unstable. If it’s a brown shooter or someone who is Muslim, they’re automatically labeled a terrorist,” says Hasan Ali, my neighbor in Pleasanton, who migrated to the U.S. from Egypt 35 years ago. “Seeing things like that is so frustrating.”

“It’s now been 20 years since 9/11. I’d like to think when I shop in a grocery store, people’s first impression of me isn’t, ‘I hope he’s one of the good Muslims.’ Instead, I hope they see a 55-year-old exhausted father of two and grandfather of one, who is trying his best to survive the pandemic, and who only happens to be Muslim.

A Vaccine or My Family: Children of anti-vaxers caught in the Middle

When she went to get her first dose of the vaccine, Anya, 27, told her parents she was going to get her Friday fix of samosas and rasmalai from Bharat Bazaar, the local Indian store. Her parents (family friends of mine) whom she was staying with, in Yuba City—while working remotely —believe that Covid 19 vaccines are “manufactured by the deep state” and that “when 5G gets turned on, it will kill everyone.”

“When they found out I was even thinking about getting it, they cried and legitimately thought I’d be dead in three years,” said Anya. So Anya decided to get the shot in secret. “I almost got caught,” she recalls. Getting the shot took quite some time and adding on the time to get groceries made my trip “seem extremely long.”

While Anya was more careful in scheduling her second dose, making up an excuse that she was meeting a colleague for lunch in San Francisco, the side effects she experienced afterward presented a challenge.

“I first felt nauseous, then I got a fever, followed by fatigue, and the next day, around 3 a.m., severe chills. These were the worst chills I ever felt. I could not get warm and I was afraid I’d have to go to the hospital. I finally started reciting the Gayatri Mandir—the chant of my childhood, which Mummy had taught me as a way to keep away ghosts and nightly spirits. I had to pretend the rest of the day by sticking to my usual routine, which was completely awful.”

Anya and I are having this conversation while we’re attending a mutual acquaintance’s Sangeet—a pre-wedding musical party—at a farmhouse, where two elaborate, highly decorative, temporary pavilions have been erected. These structures resemble Bollywood film sets, with hanging tea lights and dream catchers draped over the willow trees in the garden. Anya holds the hem of her lehnga high, squeezes my elbow to say goodbye, and winds her way to the henna artist who squats on a Persian carpet, waiting to decorate the hands of the bride’s guests.

Anya is among one of the least vaccinated groups in the country, people in their 20s. There are many reasons young adults may not be getting vaccinated against Covid-19, but among the roadblocks is living with parents who believe in conspiracy theories surrounding the shots, like the belief that it is a way for the government to control the population by reducing fertility or that it contains a microchip or alters your DNA.

More young adults have been living with their parents than at any other time in recent history, and some of them have reported that they have held off entirely because they do not want to engage in that contentious discussion with their parents or lie to them.

Now, Anya is on a mission to get her younger cousins vaccinated. She turns to her cousin, Neelu, 18, who’s been sitting stone still as she gets an elaborate peacock design inked onto her hand.

Tears gather at the corner of Neelu’s almond-shaped eyes as she talks about how her Mom and Dad have bought into the whole Q-Anon thing. “I feel so much better after getting vaccinated in June. You don’t realize how the stress of possibly dying from a virus or getting someone else sick or killed affects you both mentally and physically until it’s no longer a constant worry.”

Anya rubs her dry palms together and inhales the fragrance of the mehndi. “I’m still waiting for my third arm to grow, but after five months, I’m beginning to give up hope.”

Neelu giggles, then her eyes open wide in admiration at the rich cinnamon color painted on Anya’s hands. “You know, what they say, Didi,” she teases, with a lilt in her voice, “the darker the henna, the more loving your husband will be.”

The American Mall : Dead as the Dinosaur

In March of this year, Neelu Joseph received a flurry of text messages from her mother, who was at the going-out-of-business sale at their local Macy’s. She was floored—not by the deals but because her childhood mall, Metrocenter Mall in Glendale, Arizona, was losing another big box store. Sears exited a couple of years ago, and the mall had steadily lost tenants like the Gap, H & M, and Abercrombie and Fitch. Her teenage self would barely recognize the place today.

The water in the pan is boiling. Neelu swirls a Tetley teabag and watches the curls of black spread through the water like ink. She adds a few tablespoons of nonfat milk to the simmering chai, then drops cardamom seeds, and a cinnamon stick as images from yesteryears parade through her mind.

She was seventeen, and so proud when the manager at Macy’s moved her over from the candy counter to the cosmetics counter. it was thought the prettiest girl in the store would be placed at the cosmetics counter where face cream, bath powder, perfume, nail polish, and beauty products including combs and hairbrushes were sold.

Neelu soon learned that the cosmetics counter was a much harder job than the candy counter. Almost all the customers of cosmetics were women, and women were much harder to wait on than men. Women would come and look at things for what seemed like hours, opening bottles and sniffing. They’d spray samples of perfume on their wrists until they smelled up the whole store, then walk away without buying anything. Some old sisters, in matching twinsets, bobby socks, and emanating a faint odor of cat litter, would say cutting things to her, and some would slip a bottle of nail polish in their oat pocket. She had to learn when to be nice and when to be cool. That was the hardest part. Yankee women and well-heeled tourists from Scottsdale would treat her like dirt under their feet. Neelu reckoned they saw a brown local store clerk as nothing but a servant or trash.

During her lunch break, Neelu would race to the Orange Julius store and consume untold quantities of the fruit-flavored blended drink. Sometimes she’d wander into Claire’s and watch queasy teenage girls grimace as they got their ears pierced with a glorified staple gun. Now, it seemed she would never again smell the heady scent of Mrs. Fields’ cookies as she peered into the murky mirror in the department store’s fitting room while brooding over how fat her ass looked in low-rise jeans. The standard American mall—with its vast parking lots, escalators, and air-conditioning—Neelu’s hometown had two of them, each thriving. She would have been shocked to hear that in a few decades, the very concept of a mall would find itself in existential peril.

*          *          *          *

The pandemic has been devastating for the retail industry and many small stores like Papyrus and GNC Vitamins are disappearing at a rapid clip. Some chains are unable to pay rent and prominent department stores like Neiman Marcus, as well as JCPenney have filed for bankruptcy protection. As they close doors, it has caused other tenants to abandon malls at the same time as large specialty chains like Victoria’s Secret and Payless Shoe Source are shrinking.

Even before the pandemic, American shopping malls were seeing their revenue plummet due to the surge of Internet shopping. Jim Hull, the owner and managing principal of the Hull property group in Augusta, GA, which oversees thirty enclosed malls said in an interview in the New York Times that he anticipated making malls more “community-based” in smaller markets. “It’s going to be cooking classes, boutiques, Internet businesses that want a physical presence, healthcare, and food choices,” he said.

Sometimes change is inevitable and for the better, other times not so much. We put a man on the moon when I was three years old. Now I am in my 50s and hundreds of millions of people around the world still don’t have access to clean water.

Does No One Want To Work Anymore?

Baby Boo is making a face that means she might soon begin to cry. Priya’s neck is sweating. Her armpits are sweating.

Chef Rajiv Bhatia, Owner and Head Cook, of one of Los Angeles’ finest Indian restaurants, Bombay Grill, yells, “Pick up for Table number 6, ready!” as he swiftly ladles goat curry fragrant with peppercorns, ginger, and coconut milk atop a puddle of basmati rice. That’s the order for her customer in the corner booth, an olive-hued man in his 30s, lightly tanned, wearing a taupe-colored Stetson hat that covers most of his face.

Priya bends into Baby Boo’s stroller and tickles her cheek with her hair because even a mama in crisis comforts her baby. That’s the minimum, automatic human response. Boo’s arms flail out, and then she snuggles in. She is fuzzy and smells like pie. Priya holds her breath. Maybe, just maybe, Boo will settle into her nap, and she can whisk off to get food to the taciturn customer who had reeled off his order, not looking up to make eye contact with Priya.

But, Boo begins to wail, staring up at Priya, sucking on her fist. Priya leans down, pops the buckles on Boo’s harness with one hand, and hoists her on her lap, bouncing the baby gently in her arms—this is what she’s learned from four months of motherhood. Constant motion is paramount. With her other hand, she grabs the plate and balances it on her forearm, trying not to wince as the hot dish sears through her long-sleeved black polyester blouse.

She juggles the baby and the plate with practiced ease, setting it down in front of the customer, next to a stemmed glass filled with champagne. He looks up at her for a brief moment, his light brown eyes opening wide in amazement.

He clears his throat noisily, “Um . . . is that your child?”

“Yup,” Priya nods wryly. “Single mom working double shifts to make ends meet. End of story. Now, is there anything else I can get for you, Sir?”

The man shakes his head, and begins to devour his meal, inhaling the aroma before he even has a chance to sip his drink. Cuddling Boo against her with a sigh, Priya heads for the kitchen.

“In you go, sweetie,” she says as she settles Boo in her high chair. She puts a teething biscuit on the tray to appease the baby while collecting the remaining diners’ orders.

An hour later, she goes to check on the customer in the corner booth. He is gone, an empty fork resting on his half-eaten dessert of cardamom and pineapple pie—a heavenly confection of crisp, flaky pocket pastry stuffed with a warm fruit filling that bursts out of it in a passion of color—mostly brown yellows and cinnamon golds.

The check has been paid for the $32 bill with a credit card. There are two $500 bills resting on the flocked silver tray with a note scrawled on the bill: “I am so impressed with your work ethic and how you’re struggling to support your baby in a society where people don’t want to work anymore.” Next to his glass of iced water are two tickets to the ‘Mickey Singh All-Live Concert in the U.S.’ for next Saturday night.

Priya’s eyes fill up. She closes them to stop the tears from falling.

*****************************************************

The phrase “no one wants to work anymore” has gained popularity as some businesses blame the labor shortage on lazy workers. Stores and restaurants around the U.S. are struggling to fill their rosters. Covid-related immigration restrictions have greatly limited the number of foreign workers entering the US and a dwindling number of people are willing and able to accept the grueling requirements of the hospitality industry amid a lingering pandemic. The answer?

Michael Lastoria, CEO of &Pizza, a restaurant chain in Washington D.C., claims that he’s bombarded with job applications. Michael Lastoria told Insider that business was booming at the pizza chain’s 51 locations, and all were fully staffed. He said the secret was paying staff a proper wage.

Like any other industry, restaurants rely on their staff. The tight labor market has put workers at an advantage—some have used the time to look for better-paying jobs with better working conditions.

“They’re refusing to go back because they’re not seeing a matching increase in wage. That’s not lazy; that’s people being aware that their work is being exploited,” says Priya, as she nuzzles Boo. The baby looks up at her and smiles with her whole face: her cheeks bunch, her black eyes glimmer, her chest puffs up, and her fists thrash in delight as Priya mentally runs through the list of people she can call to babysit while she attends the concert.

What is causing air-rage in the U.S. and beyond?

"I am 40. My first flight was when I was 18 years old. Everyone was well-mannered, and an old lady sitting next to me gave me a piece of gum. Fast forward to my last flight in 2021. Trashy people dressed like slobs acting entitled, choosing to punch a flight attendant."

Joe Munroe, a lanky, brown-haired man with bushy eyebrows and a receding chin, is talking about an altercation between a passenger on a Southwest flight from Sacramento to San Diego who got violent and knocked out two of the attendant's front teeth. Read here

"It's a lot of people not really understanding that it is our job to remind them to put on their seat belts and not get up to use the restroom when we're taxiing on the runway," says Lori, a flight attendant for Delta Airlines who spoke on condition that only her first name be used so that she could speak candidly.

According to the FAA, the agency has received more than 3000 reports of unruly passengers since January 1. (To put that in context, the FAA received just 146 in 2019.)

My friend, Priya Sethi, who is a flight attendant with United Airlines, says, "I know that the vaccine is here and countries are opening up, but we are still in a pandemic, and there are still specific safety regulations that are in place. You may hate masks, but they're still required on planes. I wear mine for twelve hours a day. It's really painful to have people yelling at me, "she says.

Priya flies the direct route between San Francisco and New Delhi, India, and although she hasn't faced bad behavior from aggressive passengers comparable to the above incident, she says the problem has become so severe that TSA is relaunching a self-defense training course for flight attendants and pilots to handle "potential physical altercations."

Flight attendants say inconsiderate passengers are taking away the joy they get from the service element of their job. “I love connecting with my passengers, teasing them,” says Lori, as she wipes down the seats with sanitizing cloths. “But it is definitely a different ballgame right now. Some of the customers make it very hard to give that good customer service each and every time because they’re just acting out. They’re being very rude and nasty to the flight attendants.” She was a crew member of the Delta Air Flight where a violent passenger was subdued near the cockpit. After witnessing that altercation, Lori had to take two weeks off, to regroup and make sure she was in the right mental space to interact with passengers again.

So, why is this happening now? Air travel seems to have several elements that make it problematic for a society rapidly emerging from a pandemic. To begin with, most customers are crammed into tight spaces with complete strangers, where they have little control over what's happening to them. Experts say this can lead to nervousness, negative feelings, and the kind of outbursts that are now the content of viral videos. Political polarisation and limited food and drink options seem to have heightened tensions too.

However, a well-known writer, Francine Prose, is suggesting that the prickly issue of the pandemic's mental-health legacy is what is emerging in the (un) friendly skies. "Let's be clear," she says in an article (dated 6/22/21) in The Guardian, "something terrible and destabilizing happened to us . . . Hundreds of thousands of people died. Our Capitol was invaded. Our democracy remains at risk. For millions of Americans, there has been no recovery, and for them, the new normal is an ongoing state of panic. No matter what the charts show, people are still unemployed or fending off the creditors unleashed by the wreckage of their businesses."

Ms. Prose suggests that for many Americans, the recovery is happening inside a pressure cooker. I agree. It may be Psychology 101, but until we address our societal nervous breakdown, deal with our mass amnesia, rather than partying like we're rock stars, this prime summer travel season is going to see more of the new 'Fight or Flight' response.

Read more about why travel has become an emotional journey Here

Surviving and flourishing during the Pandemic

Sixty-three-year-old Julia walked to the edge of the campsite and yanked on the rope that held her food in a tarp off the ground. Outside her trailer, she placed folding chairs, a small camp table, and a Coleman stove, with an old-fashioned coffee pot heating on it. She measured the coffee, turned it on, and thought of what she would make for breakfast—maybe, an omelet with the sourdough bread she’d picked up from The Food Emporium at the nearby riverside market town.

Her neighbor from the next trailer Connie Thrush would be here soon for their morning yoga session. Today she intended to talk to Connie about the next park she was planning to visit. Maybe, Connie, a craftswoman, would come with her. Last week, she and Connie, and Roy had sat outside Connie’s tiny car crammed with yarns and boxes of donated used clothing and blankets, the coffee pots and fixings placed on top of a rack attached to the roof of the car. Before they knew it, she had both her and Roy holding crochet hooks and making granny squares.

She stretched her arms over her head and said quietly, her voice a whisper on the morning breeze, “I am a nomad, and I love my life.”

For a year now, she’d lived a long, peripatetic life on the road. Last year was a hard one for her not only because of the pandemic but, her husband left her, she had to sell her house, and her youngest son went to college. She realized very quickly she had no marketable skills—her college degree was decades old. Since she didn’t have a place to stay and was very confused about what she should do in the future, she’d first started visiting national and state parks. She stayed in cabins, tents, boats, trailers, and inside her car.

Three-hundred sixty-seven nights, in more than 31 states—she washed her clothes at Laundromats and joined cheap fitness clubs to use showers. To keep her belly full, she worked for long hours at hard, physical jobs. Six months ago she’d got a battered silver-gray used RV with the last of the sale proceeds from the house and fixed it up. That was her home. In all those miles, she wandered with no goal. She wasn’t on a trip, vacation, or pilgrimage. She had no list of set destinations or set sights to see. Someone whose destination was the journey itself, someone who just picked up and went whenever and wherever they pleased.

All the years she’d been married to Bob, they didn’t travel. Bob did the hippy thing after college, sleeping in German wheat fields and partying around Europe, but by the time their son was born, Bob’s long hair had disappeared right along with any wanderlust he had. Instead, life became defined by the 9-to-5 cycle of work on a fixed mortgage.

She’d met so many people and become friends with them. In Iowa, Joe, a former cab driver, 67, who’d labored with her at the annual corn harvest. They’d worked from sunrise until after sunset in temperatures that dipped below freezing, helping trucks that rolled in from the fields disgorge multi-ton loads of field corn. At night Joe would sleep in the van that had been his home since Uber squeezed him out of the taxi industry, making the rent impossible. She’ll see him again later in October this year.

In Campbellsville, Kentucky, a 60-year-old general contractor, Maggie who showed her how to merchandise during the overnight shift at an Amazon warehouse, pushing a wheeled cart for miles along the concrete floor. It was mind-numbing work, and Julia had struggled to scan each item accurately, hoping to avoid getting fired. In the morning she would return to her RV, moored at one of the several mobile home parks that contracted with Amazon to put up nomadic workers like her. She didn’t think she was returning to Amazon anytime soon. Not until the company allowed their workers to be unionized.

In San Marcos, California, a thirty-something couple in a 1975 GMC motorhome, running a roadside pumpkin stand with a children’s carnival and petting zoo which they had five days to set up from scratch on a vacant dirt lot. They’d given her a fair price for Connie’s crochet doilies and scarves. In a few weeks, they were going to switch to selling Christmas trees, but they’d assured her that they would be happy to accept Connie’s handmade offerings for sale.

9200 miles, which unspooled like a filmstrip of America. Fast food joints and shopping malls. Fields dormant under frost. Featureless plains. Auto dealerships, dead factories, subdivisions, and mega-churches. Snowcapped peaks. The roadside reeling past, through the day and into the darkness.

Now, Julia unfurled the map and carefully marked the route to Yellowstone National Park. She folded the map and put away her Magic Marker.

Later, sharing a glass of Walmart’s red wine with Connie, she would tell her, “I still don’t know what I’ll do in the future, but even though it’s been hard traveling by myself, I feel much stronger and happier now. There’s hope on the road, a sense of opportunity, as wide as the country itself.”

A Year Later: Travel Has Become an Emotional Journey

When Rajesh Sharma finally became eligible to receive the Covid vaccine, he jumped into action and added three big events to his calendar: his two vaccine appointments and a request for a four-week leave of absence so that he could visit his aged mother in India, who had been hunkering alone on the seventh floor of her hot and humid apartment in Gurgaon, New Delhi. Exactly two weeks and one day after receiving his second Moderna shot and thus fully immunized, he boarded a plane for an intercontinental flight for the first time in a year and a half.

“I have some loose plans to take my Mom for her annual check-ups and get her Gurkha servant, Bahadur, who’s been in our family for thirty years his two Covidshield vaccines, but mostly I planned on a solo trip just to chill out with my mom. Spend time with her before it’s too late, and I’m filled with regrets. I promised my mom that as soon as I was fully vaccinated I’d return to visit her and for me, it marks the beginning of our return to normalcy,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at the passenger next to him.

“The emotional connection that a trip provides is one reason that travel can have an enduring impact on our happiness,” said the earnest bespectacled scholar seated next to him on the long flight to India.

Later he would learn that the man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, about fifty years old with a student’s stoop in his shoulders was Dr. Amit Kumar, assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who in his professional capacity studied how happiness was affected by experiential purchases versus material ones. As their salads arrived, Dr. Kumar explained that though material purchases like clothing or technical gadgets may physically last, the emotional value they provide is often fleeting because we get used to seeing them in our closet or in that tech drawer among a tangled mess of errant wires. That’s not the case with experiential purchases like travel.

“We look back fondly at that great trip we took,“ Dr. Kumar said while savoring his third glass of red wine with his vegetarian-choice meal of cauliflower biryani and dal with pickle. “We often have these positive memories of our experiences. The psychology of material goods doesn’t work in quite the same way,” he finished, his brown eyes catching the glare coming in through the window.

Twenty-four hours later, when Rajesh stepped out of Indira Gandhi International Airport, the familiar warm odor of sweat, grease, and incense that hung in the humid night air assailed his nostrils. He put his luggage in the taxi he’d ordered, the radio tuned to a single channel—Bollywood Oldies and Goldies, and he hummed along to the songs he recognized from his youth. They drove past tea stalls on stilts, chickens being sold in round cane baskets, and paper mache Durga Puja goddesses being constructed in shanty houses. They passed open sewers—filth-spattered stray dogs rooting n a mound of rubbish—warehouses that looked decrepit but bore names like ‘factory-price Benetton clothing’ and ‘Tetley Darjeeling Tea’ as Rajesh wiped ineffectually at the sweat running from his forehead.

Alighting at his ancestral home after an hour spent on roads clogged with cars and fume-belching trucks he couldn’t suppress the Americanness of his own gaze as he was struck at first by how shabby the house appeared. There were cracks running through the ceiling and dry bubbles of paint flaking off where dampness had entered its walls.

His weary eyes shifted to the eighty-six-year-old woman standing in the doorway, leaning on a cane, her lips lifting in a smile that curled like spreading oil. After eighteen months, the prodigal son was finally home.

COVID-Complicated Graduations: In-person or Virtual?

Her first reaction after receiving the email from the University announcing that commencement would be conducted online was to cry. Across Southern California, larger colleges were announcing plans for in-person graduations—so why not hers?

Then, twenty-two-year-old Anya dried her tears and turned to Instagram, asking: If Vanguard University hosted an in-person graduation, would they attend?

When eighty percent of the respondents said ‘Yes,’ she and two classmates created a GoFundMe account and started selling tickets.

Now standing in front of a rack overflowing with streamers and graduation banners at the party store, she remembered how she and her two classmates were quickly overwhelmed as students and their parents pitched in more than $25,000—significantly more than the $12,000 price tag for the convention center they were renting for the graduation, now scheduled for next week.

As Anya Sharma unloaded her shopping cart and placed the gazillion party supplies she’d chosen on the counter, she chatted with the cashier.

The tattooed clerk behind the register, covered in leather and piercings that lined her lobes and nostrils and brows, wore a lapel tag that announced her name as “Heidi M.” Heidi commiserated with Anya as she spoke of her frustration with their campus for sticking to virtual-only ceremonies. “It’s especially galling because UCLA, which is just two miles away and is graduating with a class five times larger than our very expensive private college, is offering in-person commencement ceremonies.”

The counter gal, Heidi, nodded her head, her hair settling around her shoulders in a wild cloud of corkscrew curls. “My cousin’s school—University of Maryland—is doing an in-person ceremony but they’re putting in extensive safety measures. They told graduates and their families to provide proof of vaccination or else, a negative coronavirus test,” she said, taking the cash Anya handed her.

Heidi smiled at her as she rang her up, two tiny silver balls peeking out from under her top lip.

“To be with my classmates, to walk across the stage, to receive the diploma that we all worked so hard for, it means absolutely everything, and a forty-five-minute virtual commencement of my name across the screen just wasn’t enough. “ Anya took the receipt the cashier handed her and tucked it into her bag. As she turned to leave, she waggled her fingers at Heidi, thinking of the video and slide show tribute featuring each participating senior that they would play before the graduates walked across the stage of the rental hall.

This is the moment that every kid dreams of growing up. . .so what it the University doesn’t endorse it, she thought with a big, happy grin that flooded her face with sunshine.

* * * * *

The red brick building loomed before Bindu Fernandes in the street, the turret with its green dome achingly familiar since her twenty-two-year-old son had first come to the University of Michigan to study engineering here four years ago.

As the car pulled to a halt, Bindu could see her son’s best friend’s mom, Robyn Kelly, waiting outside the University for her, her curly blond hair gleaming in the sun. There was a small group of protestors, other parents she guessed, already assembled outside the gate, holding placards: “Honk to Support UMich Class of 2021, In-person, Safe, Graduation ceremony.” That was the reason Bindu had driven two-and-a-half hours from her home in North Muskegon, on the shore of Lake Michigan, to join the group of parents and students who now stood on the streets of Ann Arbor demanding an in-person commencement.

“Didi, it’s so unfair,” Bindu complained to her older sister, who was calling from California. “The UMichigan Stadium is capable of seating more than 100,000 people —and is both the largest in the country and one of the largest in the world. On the other hand, Michigan State University, with has far less outdoor seating capacity, is holding fifty staggered ceremonies to ensure social distancing. It is inconceivable that we would be in the same position this year when the University had a year to plan.”

Bindu finished her phone call as she parked and locked her car, walking briskly across the gum-stained pavement to join the others.

The following week, while lathering herself in the shower with her favorite creamy, rich Sakura Blossom soap that her brother sent her from London she would think back on the rally she and the parent group organized. Possibly because of pressure from the parents, the University announced several changes. Graduating seniors would be allowed to watch the ceremony on a screen while sitting inside the stadium. Parents would be allowed to go inside the stadium afterward to take pictures.

Two days later: Bindu’s feet tapped a runaway rhythm in the flat ballerina shoes she’d worn all day as she clicked full-color shots of seniors in burgundy caps and gowns, the bright gold tassels wagging like wayward tails as the kids tossed their caps in the sky.