But love marriages are more fragile than arranged marriages. They can change in an instant.

If I’d learned one thing from my mother, it was that perception was everything.

“It is not sensible to think that way. We can only know the path we chose.”

Belonging was something you were born into. It wasn’t something that could be earned. It had taken me far too long to recognize that.

Seeing the world through my lens for the past few days reignited something in me that had been dormant.

As the only Indian woman at my firm, I had always known I had to make up for not being white, and I was confident I would.

My mother and I got along much better with thousands of miles separating us.

Those things happened every day and were a constant reminder that no matter how far I’d gone, I still had further to go.”

For years, when things were so hard for Neel and me, I’d been resentful that they’d made this move thinking only of themselves and not about how it would affect us.