What Was The Duty Of The Teacher

I Had Never Walked On The Street Alone When I Was Growing Up In Calcutta, Up To Age 20. I Had Never Handled Money. You Know, There Was Always A Couple Of Bodyguards Behind Me, Who Took Care If I Wanted... I Needed Pencils For School, I Needed A Notebook, They Were The Ones Who Were Taking Out The Money. I Was Constantly Guarded.

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!'

I Am An American, Not An Asian-american. My Rejection Of Hyphenation Has Been Called Race Treachery, But It Is Really A Demand That America Deliver The Promises Of Its Dream To All Its Citizens Equally.

I Feel Empowered To Be A Different Kind Of Writer. The Longer I Stay Here, The More Light Filters Into My Work. I Feel Very American. I Belong.

Bengalis Love To Celebrate Their Language, Their Culture, Their Politics, Their Fierce Attachment To A City That Has Been Famously Dying For More Than A Century. They Resent With Equal Ferocity The Reflex Stereotyping That Labels Any Civic Dysfunction Anywhere In The World 'another Calcutta.'