Sanjana Sukumar's APLit blog

The phone call ended after a quick “Hi. How are you?” At age five, these brief conversations with my grandparents began to feel like a chore. This scarcity of conversation is the product of a language barrier. I felt disconnected from my grandparents due to my broken Tamil, my mother tongue, and the physical distance between us. While struggling to hold a conversation, insecurity settled in as it furthered the gap between my grandparents and I. During my adolescence, I felt out of touch with my Indian identity. When my family and I visited India during the summers, I tried to make the best out of the trip but always longed to come back home. At the time, I didn't think there was much to unpack with this yearning for home but that soon changed when my family and I moved to India. As we upended our lives, my five year old self accepted this change gladly and marked it as a new beginning.  My heightened self-awareness led to my understanding that the move to India enabled a conn...

My nose catches the initial scent of my mother’s cooking. As I lay in my room, I am interrupted by the smell of onions tossed in olive oil. My stomach begins to grumble so I run downstairs and hop on the counter of my kitchen as I watch my mother cook a typical family meal: snake gourd with yogurt rice and mango pickle.  My eyes fixate on the pan. I watch as the snake gourd, mustard seeds, green chilli, and garlic flakes are added in next. I am asked to do the stirring at this point and try to do so while dodging the popping oils coming my way.  Meanwhile, my mother prepares the cumin and red chilli peppers by grinding them with a mortar and pestle. She always allowed me to do the honors of adding salt since she says I have a keen eye and taste for the perfect amount. While I stir, the smell of spices waft out from the kitchen and fill the entire house with its distinct aroma. I pass over the baton also known as the wooden spatula to my mother and head over to...

My room is a product of my creative expression. Every detail has been well thought out and has meaning to it. It has always been a priority in my life to make sure my space makes me feel like I belong. The process began in third grade when my family and I moved back to California from India. My parents told me I couldn't paint the walls so I biked to Micheals to grab some 3D stickers. The stickers were made out of foam and came in an assortment of colors. I decided I wanted my wall to look like a garden since my favorite book at the time was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I placed stickers together in order to create flowers, trees, grass, and a sun. All of these stickers have a special place in my heart because of what they represented. Specifically, the sun sticker that is a representation of light to me which is an essential part of my room. If there’s even a speck of light shining through my curtains in the morning, I will draw the curtains open and make ...