A Farmer Is Dependent On

The Traveler Feels At Home Everywhere, Because She Is Never At Home Anywhere.

The Picture Of Mother Teresa That I Remember From My Childhood Is Of A Short, Sari-wearing Woman Scurrying Down A Red Gravel Path Between Manicured Lawns. She Would Have In Tow One Or Two Slower-footed, Sari-clad Young Indian Nuns. We Thought Her A Freak. Probably Wed Picked Up On Unvoiced Opinions Of Our Loreto Nuns.

I Have To Put Down Roots Where I Decide To Stay. It Wasn't Enough For Me To Be An Expatriate Indian In Canada. If I Can't Feel That I Can Make Social, Political And Emotional Commitments To A Place, I Have To Find Another Place.

I Flew Into A Small Airport Surrounded By Cornfields And Pastures, Ready To Carry Out The Two Commands My Father Had Written Out For Me The Night Before I Left Calcutta: Spend Two Years Studying Creative Writing At The Iowa Writers Workshop, Then Come Back Home And Marry The Bridegroom He Selected For Me From Our Caste And Class.

I Had A 2-week Courtship With A Fellow Student In The Fiction Workshop In Iowa And A 5-minute Wedding In A Lawyer's Office Above The Coffee Shop Where We'd Been Having Lunch That Day. And So I Sent A Cable To My Father Saying, 'by The Time You Get This, Daddy, I'll Already Be Mrs. Blaise!'