Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
I was so young when I went there that I only remember this because of a photo. It's me sitting in a "tub" with solid clear plastic bubbles, next to a static Ernie and the …
I went to sleep at a reasonable hour, for once. My mother and I slept in the same bed -- the one in my room, since her bedroom seems to provoke my allergies. She isn't …
At yesterday's service, several people spoke. My eulogy follows, then my sister Nandini's. I am Sumana Harihareswara. I am S.K. Harihareswara's younger daughter. I learned so much from my father and I'm only realizing some …
"Kaali" (empty) vs. "Ka(r)li" (a goddess of death). "Thali" (plate for food) vs. "tha(r)li" (necklace married women wear). The (r) here indicates just the slightest hint of an "r" before the L; linguists, feel free …
First: I am wearing a lot of long tunic-drawstring pants-sash combination outfits here in India. Depending on where you are, you call them "pyjama juba" (whence comes the English word "pajama"), "salwar kameez," or "chudidhar." …
Yesterday evening, our friend Beth hosted a Passover seder that Leonard and I attended. She and Dara had created the haggadah by splicing together elements from three haggadot, including a few moments where (as Beth …
Glurge is a certain kind of inspirational story. It's unattributed, it's a honed anecdote honoring goodness and generosity and loyalty and stamina and often faith, and it has a kitschy feel that irony-aligned people of …
I recently read Linda Gordon's The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Harvard University Press, 1999). It's an edifying and engrossing read. Let me quote the publisher's blurb: In 1904, New York nuns brought 40 Irish orphans …
As Leonard suggests, celebrate by reading Jeff Soesbe's near-future scifi story, "The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram." I'm surprised at how much it meant to me, emotionally, that President Obama personally celebrated Diwali …
The votes all request the New York As Religion hypothesis. So here goes some analogizing. Actual ethnographers, please correct the hell out of me. The phenomena I wish to explain: New Yorkers feel at home …