Dullness Is A Kind Of Luxury.

You See For Me, America Is An Idea. It Is A Stage For Transformation. I Felt When I Came To Iowa City From Calcutta That Suddenly I Could Be A New Person . . . What America Offers Me Is Romanticism And Hope . . . Suddenly, I Found Myself In A Country Where

[on Her Writing Agenda:] Make The Familiar Exotic; The Exotic Familiar.

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.

In Traditional Hindu Families Like Ours, Men Provided And Women Were Provided For. My Father Was A Patriarch And I A Pliant Daughter. The Neighborhood I'd Grown Up In Was Homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, And Middle-class. I Didn't Expect Myself To Ever Disobey Or Disappoint My Father By Setting My Own Goals And Taking Charge Of My Future.

A Farmer Is Dependent On Too Many Things Outside His Control; It Makes For Modesty.