There Was No Audience For My Books.

I Flew Into A Small Airport Surrounded By Cornfields And Pastures, Ready To Carry Out The Two Commands My Father Had Written Out For Me The Night Before I Left Calcutta: Spend Two Years Studying Creative Writing At The Iowa Writers Workshop, Then Come Back Home And Marry The Bridegroom He Selected For Me From Our Caste And Class.

Mother Teresas Detractors Have Accused Her Of Overemphasizing Calcuttans Destitution And Of Coercing Conversion From The Defenseless. In The Context Of Lost Causes, Mother Teresa Took On Battles She Knew She Could Win. Taken Together, It Seems To Me, The Criticisms Of Her Work Do Not Undermine Or Topple Her Overall Achievement.

In Hindu Societies, Especially Overprotected Patriarchal Families Like Mine, Daughters Are Not At All Desirable. They Are Trouble. And A Mother Who, As Mine Did, Has Three Daughters, No Sons, Is Supposed To Go And Hang Herself, Kill Herself, Because It Is Such An Unlucky Kind Of Motherhood To Have.

I'm Very Moved By Chaos Theory, And That Sense Of Energy. That Quantum Physics. We Don't Really, In Hindu Tradition, Have A Father Figure Of A God. It's About Cosmic Energy, A Little Spark Of Which Is Inside Every Individual As The Soul.

A Farmer Is Dependent On Too Many Things Outside His Control; It Makes For Modesty.