Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
"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 …
Today, looking at the tax documents, I saw Leonard's name next to mine and felt awe again that we're really seriously married. Mega-married! proclaimed Leonard. We conjectured that maybe the government should let same-sex couples …
A More Perfect Union from Andrew Sloat on Vimeo.
I wish a happy birthday weekend to my sister, who has been having multiple melas to celebrate. Nandini's birthday and that of India itself nearly coincide. Coincidence? Semantically, sorta! Long years ago we made a …