I was not born in America, I CHOSE AMERICA.

In a citizenship ceremony that had some 80 countries represented, I stood up and took the oath to support and defend the constitution of this country. And this is how it came about.

I had arrived in America in the year 2000 on a bright April morning, a wide-eyed young woman on a decidedly one-way ticket, with a heart full of hope and a head full of impossible dreams. After the stifling patriarchy and everyday misogyny of India, I was ready to use every opportunity that America offered me. And it did offer me many opportunities. I worked as a Software Engineer then earning the respect of my all-male colleagues, I drove cross-country to LA never worrying about being unsafe as a woman so I could study film at UCLA and fulfill my dreams of being a film-maker. Dreams that were not feasible for me in India.

And because I was curious to learn about the world, I traveled – both inside America and abroad. Which was always a bit nerve-wracking because living on a visa means you can never be too sure if despite all your documents being valid and the dotted “Is” and the crossed “Ts”, how things will go at the border. The immigration officer might find a deficiency that you overlooked, they may be in a bad mood; have an upset stomach, decide they didn’t like you because you had the wrong haircut – or – the wrong skin color. Those things occasionally did make news. But by & large the system worked as designed, and it was designed NOT to be capricious. So I always came back home to America.

I also spent time learning about my adopted country; immersing myself in American history, civics and politics. I marched against the Iraq war in 2003 – while I was on a visa. I marched for climate action in 2005 and 7 and 8 and 12 – while I was on a visa, and later while I was on a Green Card. I participated in the women’s march in DC in Jan 2016 – while I was still on a green card. Never once did I worry that my Green Card could be canceled because of my political views, that I could be disappeared or deported to one of the worst prisons in the world. Whatever other faults America had, it was clearly a country that, to me, strove to live up to its ideals of the 1st amendment and due process.

So finally – after an excruciatingly cumbersome legal process of visa renewals and green card approval – the day came when I realized I would soon become eligible to apply for citizenship.

And then another realization sunk in – I would have to surrender my Indian citizenship.

Because unlike the UK or France or Germany, India doesn’t allow dual citizenship. So here I was, having to make another excruciating choice – birth country OR adopted country. As much as I wanted to be an American citizen, I couldn’t bring myself to renounce my Indian citizenship. I spent months agonizing over the decision. I nagged Mark; my husband, about how much I envied the ease with which he carried his dual citizenship; American and British. I wept like a child who is asked to choose between her parents.

And then Edward Snowden happened. For those who don’t recall, Edward Snowden is a former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents in 2013, exposing global surveillance programs and sparking worldwide debates on privacy and government overreach.

I remember reading an article one morning in The Guardian. Snowden, before he fled the US, sent his documents to The Washington Post in America and the Guardian in the UK, pissing off both governments. The article was written by Alan Rusbridger; the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, who chronicled in grim detail, the story of how agents from GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in the UK, walked into the London office of The Guardian and under the pretext of national security, forced the Guardian staff to smash the hard disks that contained files leaked by Snowden. Whether one agrees with Snowden’s actions or not, there is something deeply disturbing about the sight of government agents walking into a newspaper office and forcing the editors to destroy evidence about a story they didn’t agree with. And then I read Rusbridger’s final words and I quote: “It felt like something you’d expect in a totalitarian state… not in a democracy. This kind of thing could not happen in the United States, where the First Amendment protects the freedom of the press. Snowden’s material is safe with the Washington Post. We will continue to do journalism. Just not in London.” End quote.

I sat still. I understood my reason for becoming an American citizen.

The oath one takes at the citizenship ceremony is a living oath. It feels a bit like a wedding vow; to remain true to the promise – in sickness and in health, and especially in sickness. Because love, like citizenship, is tested not when things are easy, but when they are hard. I chose America not because I thought it was perfect, but because I believed in its promise. And no promise is more sacred, more singular to my citizenship than the First Amendment — that radical, luminous idea that a voice, no matter how small, has the right to speak, to be heard, to challenge power without fear and to hope for change.

It is this promise — fragile yet fierce— that makes this country I love worth committing to, worth fighting for, and worth choosing over and over again.

That is why I chose America.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also a trained facilitator for Crossing Party Lines moderating conversations that bring people together across their political divides. Swati is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home with her husband. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Ladies and Gentleman, we will be approaching JFK from the north, so you should be able to see the NY skyline on the starboard side of the plane. That will be to your right. It is a bright sunny day, you should be able to see the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Tower, the Twin Towers, and if you squint, possibly even the Statue of Liberty in the NY harbor.”

The pilot’s voice on a plane is as close as one can get in life to God’s voice. No? You are stuck in a closed shell of existence, your fate entirely in the hands of an unknown, unseen entity, who only interacts with you through a one-way speaker system; the plane’s intercom, and whose calm voice is what you want to hear, especially any time there is turbulence in your journey. And whose commands you obey, or at least are meant to obey, unquestioningly!

As instructed by “The God Voice”, all the occupants of the plane turned their heads to the right, eager to look out their window at the aforementioned buildings. Some of those who had seats on the starboard side pointed to their windows. Someone exclaimed “I think I see her, I see the statue of liberty”. A wave of excitement went through the plane, and it felt as if the weight of the entire plane shifted to the right.

“Welcome to America, folks”, “The God Voice” boomed.

It was April 1st, 2000, the day I arrived in America. Yes, I arrived in the US on April Fool’s Day, which has given rise to much humor & many jokes in my circle of family & friends. In a way it is quite apropos; no matter which day you arrive in America; an immigrant’s life is in many way s a fool’s errand. Who but a fool leaves everything they know; their culture, their people, their way of life, their food, their own earth, and travels thousands of miles to arrive in an unknown land, their entire life-story packed into a suitcase or two and sometimes not even that much, their most precious belonging – “HOPE” – that the new land will give them refuge and be their land.

I didn’t get to see the Statue of Liberty that day. I was not on the starboard side of the plane! That happened exactly two weeks later on April 15th, after I had dropped my sister who I had arrived in NY a week prior, on April 8th 2000, dropped her at La Guardia as she flew to Boston. We had arrived with the same employer but had been placed with two different companies, I was to work in New Jersey, my sister in Boston, which was quite excruciating. After the struggle & traumas of our lives in India, we had wanted to be together. That would come –later, for now we had said tearful goodbyes to each other at the airport. And I found myself taking the train all the way to Battery Park. Unlike the day I had arrived, it was a cold April day, drizzling, damp. But I had to see her, that mighty woman with a torch and the flame; the mythical Lady Liberty.

The first time I saw her, tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I gazed at her across the NY harbor “Give me your tired, your poor, yearning to breathe free” – I heard her voice. I was not tired or poor – at least not in the traditional sense. But I was tired – of the years’ long fight I and my sister had endured against a brutally patriarchic Indian society, which used to decide & often still does, the fate of a girl the day she was born. Crushed by the unforgiving & unyielding oppression of the old world, and aching from the desire to have a voice, I too was yearning to breathe free. I had been mother-less for years, and here I was – face to face with the Mother of Exiles. I felt like Rose Dewitt Bukatur from the movie “Titanic” might have; determined to break the shackles of her old life, sailing into the unknown of the New World, daring to make a new start & a home for herself.

Immigrants – vilified, abused, adored, reviled, heroes in headlines, suspects in whispers; they make America great, they are not the right kind, they built the skyline, they steal our jobs, they are hardworking, they are changing our culture, dreamers and thieves, burdens and hopes, America has always had a love-hate relationship with its immigrants. And immigrants have always known it, and always made it – despite the doubts, the punishments, the doors that close, the goalposts that move, the silence after the promise, the whispers & the finger-pointing. They endure — WE endure – not necessarily because we’re always welcome, but because we’re determined. It takes grit to leave one’s country behind, and most of us burn our ships when we arrive in this land – of liberty and opportunity and yes, of immigrants. For better or worse, America has ended up in the modern era as the country whose promise is both believed & sustained by the immigrants – the ones who still arrive tired, poor and yearning to breathe free. Because let’s face it, a cushy life in any land doesn’t lead to the kind of fire in the belly that fuels a nation. And the mega-rich who are able to buy their way into America through a “Gold Card”, do not aspire to belong anywhere. The American dream is the dream of the “homeless, tempest-tost, exiled immigrant” who seeks to belong, who seeks asylum.

So this April fool’s day, this fool – celebrated her Silver Jubilee in America! When I look back at 25 years of life; successes & failures, accomplishments & setbacks, lessons & heartaches, I can think of no better word that has come to define my life in America but – Immigrant. My immigrant eyes assimilated the east and the west, the old and the new, the traditions behind, and the promises ahead. I learned to read between languages, between cultures, between ideas & ideologies. I learnt to speak to both, connect with both, respond to both.

And I still carry my story — my immigrant story – and all immigrants’ stories – not just in a suitcase, but in my voice, my work, my being — because I believe & hope like only an immigrant can, that I belong in this land, that this land is my land.
 

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also a trained facilitator for Crossing Party Lines moderating conversations that bring people together across their political divides. Swati is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home with her husband. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

The Unitarian Universalist Society in Bay Shore; a pluralistic inter-faith faith fellowship of which I am a member, celebrated its 71st year anniversary on April 6, 2025. As a board-member, Treasurer and Worship Committee Chair of the fellowship, I was the key organizer of this celebration called “Folk Tales of the UUSSS”. I was the first and last speaker at the event. Following are my opening & closing words.

Opening Words

Good Morning everyone. Welcome and thank you for coming to this special service “Folk Tales of the UUSSS: our 71st Anniversary Service”. It is lovely to see both new and familiar faces.

Let us gather as we have for 71 years—in a circle of memory, hope, and belonging.

Today, we tell the folk tales of our fellowship—the stories that built these walls, the voices that shaped our journey, the laughter and tears that echo through the years. These are not just stories of the past; they are the roots that anchor us, the branches that reach for the future.

Like the old storytellers around the fire, we share not just history but wisdom. We speak not just of what was, but of what can be. We listen, we remember, and we weave our own thread into the great tapestry of Unitarian Universalism.

So bring your hearts, your voices, and your curiosity. The story of UUSSS is still unfolding, and today, we turn the page together.

Welcome.

Closing Words

A pastor who recently visited us at A Box of Chocolates asked me about the UUSSS. When I told him that we are a small fellowship, he replied, “You are not a small fellowship but a tall fellowship, because God measures not from the ground up but from the root up.” I have been thinking about his words a lot.

So, I am going to take a step back from the UUSSS to the roots of the UU, and indeed to the U.

In 1568 John Sigismund of Transylvania became the first Unitarian king in Europe and the first European monarch to grant religious freedom to Catholics, Lutherans and the Reformed Church. When called to a religious debate, his opponents declared that if victorious, they would see David; the King’s leading advocate, condemned to death as a heretic. David replied in the truest spirit of being a UU, “If I win, I shall defend to the death your right to be wrong.”

The same open-minded spirit was imbued two centuries later in the American constitution with founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams adhering to Unitarian principles. A further two centuries later, the Unitarians marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma and two of those Unitarians paid with their lives.

Unitarians ordained women since the 1800s and championed LGBTQ rights long before they were widely recognized, officially supporting same-sex unions since 1984.

The Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, a Unitarian minister from Chicago, was a key organizer of the first Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893. The event, held in Chicago marked the first major interfaith gathering in modern history and featured speakers like Swami Vivekananda from India, whose speech on Hinduism brought that faith to the shores of America, and the religious tolerance he espoused resonated with Unitarians at the time.

So why am I saying all this? Because FIRST I think it is important for us to know that as UUs we are sitting on the shoulders of pioneers & giants, and how inter-woven the UU spirit is to the American spirit. SECOND, when I walked into the UUSSS a little over 2 years ago, I felt the roots, the history, the openness, and the pluralism. I heard the music and the sermons, the joys and the sorrows. And I saw the memory and the possibilities, the tradition and the promise. I saw our potential as leaders in this community – who can speak the language of coming together, reconciliation, belonging and fellowship – a voice sorely needed at this fraught time in our country & our world.

And so. We stand today, as members of the Bay Shore Interfaith Council, strengthening bonds across faith traditions. We are partners with the Crossing Party Lines – Braver Angels Long Island Alliance to foster understanding across political divisions and listening into shared humanity. We bring art, joy, and laughter—each month through A Box of Chocolates; our feature artist & open mic program, reminding each other of the sweetness of community. We bring health and discipline through Judo and Yoga, honoring both the body and the spirit. And we are working on extending our circle through a Community Climate Garden in our backyard.

We carry this legacy forward—not as a relic of the past, but as a living, breathing force for good. We carry our work not as a small fellowship but as a tall fellowship because the real measure of height in this world is not from the ground up but from the root up.

And as the youngest member of this 71-year-old fellowship, I want to say—this is just the beginning.

Swati Srivastava is the Treasurer and Worship Committee Chair at the Unitarian Universalist Society of South Suffolk. Swati is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

I was invited to be a speaker at the Annual Inter-faith Iftar Prayer and Dinner at the Muslim Center of Long Island. Following is my speech.

Good evening – Salam Alaikum – and Namaste to all,

Much has been said about fasting as a means to gain clarity of mind, health in body, purification of the spirit and connection with the divine, all things pertinent to fasting in Hinduism so I won’t go into them. Instead I want to talk about two concepts in Hinduism that emphasizes one of the core foundations of the Hindu faith, which is “balance”. The Hindu philosophy puts an inordinate amount of value on finding balance as a way to living a good life.

The Hindu religious story begins with “Brahman” – which is the Cosmic Principle, the single binding unity behind all that exists in the universe. In ancient books, it has been described as the unchanging, permanent, highest reality. It is formless and genderless, it just is. This primal energy of the universe is the God with the big “G”. From this primal Cosmic energy (the singular) arose the masculine consciousness & the feminine creative energy, which manifests in Trinities; The Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer. Neither the masculine or the feminine energy is dominant over the other, neither give rise to the other, instead they exist since the beginning of time in an intricate balance that is manifested in each living being. These masculine and feminine energies form the Hindu pantheon of gods – often gods with a small “g”. Living beings live as part of Samsara; which is the continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth The wheel of Dharma another core concept in Hinduism symbolizes movement, cycles, and transformation, this wheel of balance operates according to the laws of the universe.

So how does balance pertain to fasting? – There are two concepts; one called rasa and the other called Tapa, they represent two contrasting and complimentary approaches to life: one rooted in sensory experience and joy, and the other in discipline and austerity.

Rasa literally means “juice” or “essence,” referring to the emotional and aesthetic experience derived from life, art, and devotion. It encourages engagement or “bhoga” with life, relationships, and emotions, embracing the richness of experience.

“Tapas” or “Tapa” literally means “heat” or “inner fire,” symbolizing self-discipline, asceticism, and the burning away of impurities. It represents renunciation, meditation, and control over desires to attain spiritual enlightenment. Tapa is a physical, verbal, and mental discipline, which aligns with the ethical principles of Yoga. Fasting is considered a form of Tapas, where one practices self-restraint, purification, and spiritual discipline to transcend physical desires and cultivate inner strength. The Sanskrit word for fasting, Upavāsa literally means “dwelling near” or “staying close”—specifically, staying close to the Divine through austerity (Tapas), meditation, and self-discipline. What comes to mind is “Nearer, My God, to Thee”.

Though opposites, Rasa and Tapa are not mutually exclusive. The ideal life involves a balance—enjoying the richness of life (Rasa) while cultivating discipline and self-control (Tapa). In Hinduism, this is embodied in figures like Krishna (who enjoys Rasa but upholds Dharma) and Shiva (who practices Tapas but also engages in cosmic dance).

A shloka or a verse from Bhagvad Gita communicates the importance of this balance:

नात्यश्नतस्तु योगोऽस्ति न चैकान्तमनश्नतः।
न चातिस्वप्नशीलस्य जाग्रतो नैव चार्जुन॥
युक्ताहारविहारस्य युक्तचेष्टस्य कर्मसु।
युक्तस्वप्नावबोधस्य योगो भवति दुःखहा॥

The meaning:

“There is no possibility of yoga – meaning spiritual discipline – for one who eats too much or eats too little, nor for one who sleeps too much or too little. He who is temperate in eating, sleeping, working, and recreation can eliminate all suffering through yoga.”

Having said that, ‘tis the season of fasting. So I will end with a quote from Bhagvata Purana “By fasting, a person purifies the body, by truthfulness, the mind; by knowledge and austerity, the soul; and by devotion, he attains liberation.”

Thankyou – Shukirya – and Danyavaad

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Would you like to go inside the church?”

I turned my head at the heavily accented voice. It belonged to a man, in his 70s, fit in body and with a weathered face, and curious eyes. I wasn’t sure what he meant, the church wasn’t open for visitors until 9am. It was a little after 8am. I noticed his umbrella – it wasn’t raining – not quite, but it was drizzling, it had been for some time, long enough to get my hair wet as I stood in front of the 15th century Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi meaning “Basilica of Saint Mary of the Pine” located in the Gothic quarter in Barcelona, which is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia in Spain. My eyes were transfixed at its Gothic façade with its life sized sculptures of the 12 apostles. I had been trying to work out who was who, I had recognized Peter with his keys, John because of his youthful looks, and Judas with his eyes averted and & a dagger hidden in his hand. I was consulting Google on my phone to figure out the rest – why was I doing this? I don’t know, I like to do these things.

I also like to visit an old European city in the early morning hours, before the hum-drum of life, the noise of the vehicles, and the throngs of people pour in. It is a ritual that I am compelled to undertake at least one or two mornings during my travel. With no semblance of modern life – either visual or aural, and surrounded entirely with historic architecture – Classical, Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-Gothic, Baroque, it is possible to imagine myself as a time-traveler – albeit from a safe distance; Christianity and especially Catholicism was not known to be kind to Pagans in the 15th century! But given that I wasn’t at any risk of being burnt at the stake as a heretic that morning, I had left Mark catching up on sleep – something he likes to do on his vacation – and slipped out into the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. After an hour of wandering, I had found myself in front of the Basilica caught by its stunning façade.

“Would you like to go inside the church?”, he had asked.

“Yes”, I found myself answering without the slightest idea of how he was going to manifest his proposition, the large iron gates on the church were firmly shut.

“Follow me” he said. I did as I was told. He went up to the metal barricade and moved it, then up the stone steps, opened the door and stepped in to the basilica. I was confronted by the beauty of a Gothic church, its dark interior with arches and pillars leading the eyes straight towards the cross at the end of the nave and up towards heaven. There were a handful of people in the basilica already – they likely worked there. The church wasn’t open to the public yet.

“Are you here to attend the mass or to see the basilica?” he asked. “To see the basilica”, I answered truthfully, I wasn’t standing outside in hopes of attending a mass, I wasn’t even standing outside in hopes of entering the church, I was just standing outside because – well I had been hypnotized – by the quest for perfection in the stone façade. In the modern world we seem to have connected religion with strife, superstition, dogma, colonialism – all things true – but we also seem to have forgotten how religion can be a call for spirituality, for faith, for humility, charity, generosity, compassion.. it offers a connection with the divine and a way to fulfill our deepest longings for meaning and purpose. It is not possible to see the Sistine Chapel, the Last Supper, the Sagrada Familia, or the innumerable churches (and other houses of worship), paintings, frescoes and monasteries across the world without feeling some of this reverence. One doesn’t have to be a Catholic or a Christian to understand or feel this. In every heart the same reverence exists. All one has to do is to recognize when one is in the presence of the sacred and take off ones shoes. I certainly know when to take off mine.

“Ah then perhaps you should return when the church is open” he responded. I almost heard a tinge of disappointment in his voice. I turned to exit.

“We have a prayer before the church opens, we will be singing in Catalan. “Would you like to join?”
“Yes. But I am not a Christian.”
“We are all children of the same God. Come.”

He took me to a chapel on the right. Another magnificent Gothic chamber. There were 3 priests in the front and a handful of people in the pews. It appeared to me to be a private prayer for the clergy and staff of the basilica.

“My name is Antonio. What is your name?”
“Swati”.
“That is a beautiful name. Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Ah wonderful”.

He handed me a small prayer book. And opened the page to MARTES – meaning TUESDAY in Spanish.

“We will be singing from this. You just follow what I do, ok?”
Ok.
The priests spoke a few words but mostly they sang – alongside the attendees, their voices rising up to the tall pillars of the Gothic chamber. I became acutely aware that I was participating in a ritual that had been ongoing for hundreds of years. It was a remarkable experience.

The prayer finished. I turned to Antonio “That was beautiful” I said.
“Yes. Yes. It is beautiful. That is why I wanted you to attend . “

He led me out of the prayer room. “I like New York, I would love to go. But now with your new president Mr. Trump, oh no no no. I will not be going for at least a few years”. He faked a shiver and laughed.

I stepped out of the basilica, and saw people in the square rushing for work, a loud scooter passed in the distance, I was back in the 21st century. I looked up at the apostles and being closer to the sculpture recognized St. Joseph; the carpenter holding a right angle. And right above me was the most famous carpenter of all, Jesus – looking down at me – almost smiling. I recalled Antonio’s last words as I thanked him for inviting me in.

“It was my pleasure, Swati from New York. This is my gift to you – from Catalonia.”

I smiled back.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Papa, one more”. “No, no, it is time to sleep.” “Yes but just one more. Pleeeease.” “Ok a short one then.” “Yeeeees yes yes yes yes..”.

And so my father began again. “Ek dafa kya hua…” the hindi words for “Once upon a time”, the words that put me to sleep from when I was a tiny toddler until the age of 8 or 9 I think.

I was a peculiar child. I didn’t care for gifts or toys or clothes or sweets or anything of the sort. What I wanted most was stories – hearing them, reading them, and later watching them in the form of movies. I hadn’t the slightest idea then that one day I will be writing them.

My father’s stories almost always came from religious texts. The ancient religion of Hinduism has no shortage of stories; the longest text in the world called Mahabharata comes from India; it is literally 5 times the length of the bible and the Iliad and the odyssey combined! It has 2,20,000 verses and about 1.8 million words. The other major Hindu text called Ramayana is about 4 times the length of the Bible. And those are just two of the numerous collections of stories. Five thousand years of the Indian journey is choc-a-block full of Creation myths , Devotional stories, Heroic tales, Divine adventures, Moral tales, Animal fables, Parables, you name it. Stories that finish in 5 minutes and stories that take 5 months to narrate. What was remarkable about my father was that he didn’t read these stories from a book, he narrated them from memory. His stories always had a male protagonist – after all most old stories had heroes not heroines. He would tell me gender doesn’t matter, any one with intelligence, courage and ambition could become a hero – even girls! 😉

My next story-teller was equally impressive. Didi; my elder sister was 5 and a half years older. But even with our wide age gap, people used to call us two peas in a pod. Our names were always taken together Aradhana-Swati, Swati-Aradhana. As a child, I followed Didi everywhere like a puppy and she – she didn’t mind that one bit. Instead she pampered me, watched over me and taught me things. I was her doll – when our mother went out to run errands, she would dress me up in our mom’s saris that she neatly folded back before mom got back home. I don’t think our mom ever found out! I was also Didi’s audience – for she too was a storyteller, except she didn’t narrate stories that she had read or heard, instead she crafted them herself. From the time I was a pre-teen to my early teen years, every night Didi would tell me a story that she spun – just like that – on the spot – from her imagination – her intricate yarn running long, months long, with its twists and turns and surprises. And her stories always had a female protagonist; a girl with the intelligence to chart a life & career of her own, courage to reject the status quo of her society and the ambition to fly to a foreign land called America. At the time I thought she was telling me these stories to teach me I can be the hero-ine of my own life, it was only when I grew up I realized she was teaching herself.

My mom didn’t tell me stories. She was living inside her own tragic fairytale; her heart nursing wounds that took her life in an untimely manner. When she passed away, and our father brought home our step-mother, my sister and I entered another fairytale. Didi & I charted lives & careers of our own, rejected the status quo of our society and flew to a foreign land called America. It was like being a hero-ine in one of Didi’s stories, or a hero in one of Papa’s.

Years passed and I became a filmmaker. Now I tell stories professionally. Although I try to live an examined life, it was only about 3 years ago when I realized how deep in my roots does storytelling go, that my storytelling is part of an inter-generational journey that continues and that my existence & identity is shaped by the stories that once lulled me to sleep and later taught me to dream. My father’s tales taught me that heroes are made, not born; my sister’s stories taught me that the heroine’s journey begins with believing in yourself. Even my mother’s silence was a story—a reminder of resilience and the chapters left unwritten.

And so as a filmmaker and storyteller, I carry their legacy forward, spinning yarns that may someday inspire another to dream beyond her – or his – horizons. Stories are more than entertainment; they are a map, a mirror, a thread. Like Ariadne’s thread, they can help us navigate the labyrinths of our lives, slay the minotaur within, and find our way back home. We are the stuff of stories.
So as I make time to write stories, my own story-time, I hear the echoes of my father saying ‘Ek dafa kya hua’ and the whispered dreams of a girl who learned she could be the hero – I mean heroine – of her own unique story.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Aloha Kane and Wanine, e Komo Mai”; “Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to Hawaii” announced the air-hostess as our plane touched down in Oahu, Hawaii. Didi (meaning elder sister in Hindi); my elder sister turned to me and smiled, I smiled back. We were together on the 6 hour flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu; a trip I had planned to celebrate Didi’s 35th birthday.

As soon as we stepped out of the airport, it felt like hitting the reset button. We were surrounded by rugged cliffs, blue water, and green mountains that seemed to disappear into the clouds. Everything moved at a different pace—slow, unhurried. There is a steady rhythm to Hawai’i. You find it in the wind, in the ocean, and in the way people live, connected to the land without making a big show of it. It’s the kind of place that lets you exhale.

Honolulu is on the island of Oahu. It’s the capital of Hawaii and the state’s largest city. We spent the next couple of days there. My strongest memory of Honolulu is visiting the Pearl Harbor Memorial that honors those who lost their lives during the 1941 attack. Centered around the sunken USS Arizona, it’s a solemn place where history feels immediate, and the calm waters stand in stark contrast to the events that unfolded. It is a beautiful understated memorial that doesn’t seek to exploit or capitalize on those horrific events or the emotions that it evokes, much like the 9/11 memorial in New York City.

Next came Big Island; the biggest of the six islands in that region. Big Island is most famous for its active volcanoes. I had planned a helicopter tour for the two of us. It is something of a unique experience to fly above a volcano, the red lava pouring from the black craters into the blue ocean, releasing steam that the pilot must carefully avoid. As we were looking down spell-bound at the scene below, the pilot made a joke over the Intercom “you know how they say; they are not making any more land? Hawaii is the only place on Earth we are still making new land.” Finally, a way to solve the problem of rising real-estate prices!

For Didi’s birthday night, I had planned a very special trip to the top of the Mauna Kea. The tallest mountain in the world when measured from its base, which is deep beneath the ocean. From its base on the ocean floor to its peak, it rises over 33,500 feet making it taller than Mount Everest. Measured from its base above sea level to its summit it is almost 14,000 feet. The most famous thing about Mauna Kea is due to its high elevation, clear skies and lack of atmospheric distortion, it is home to the world-renowned astronomical observatories and the home of the powerful keg telescopes.

I had booked this trip as part of a stargazing group. We were picked by the van at about 3pm. The drive to the Mauna Kea summit from the base takes about 2 hours, climbing from around 6,000 feet to over 14000 feet, so the road is winding and steep and the driver stopped twice for about 20 minutes each time so our bodies could acclimatize to the changing altitude and lower oxygen levels, and avoid altitude sickness.

We reached the summit about 5:30pm, an hour before sunset on Didi’s birthday. The view was breathtaking to say the least; the entire Big Island spread out beneath us, with clear views of the Pacific Ocean on both sides. The horizon seemed endless. At the time I would have said that it was the highlight of our trip but the highlight was still coming. The sun dipped below the horizon. And we saw the massive windows of the Keck observatory open slowly and sleek, metallic noses of the Keck telescopes jutted out, positioning themselves like giant sentinels ready to stand guard & observe the depth of the cosmos. At the time I would have said that it was the highlight of our trip but the highlight was still coming. Our tour guide began to setup his own telescope – tiny in comparison of course.

And then suddenly it was dark. And a hush came over the tourists standing atop the summit, as we all looked up at the sky.

It is impossible to put in words what the sky above Mauna Kea looks like. One learns in science that the universe is full of stars, but I don’t think one realizes HOW MANY stars there are. Above us the sky was a canopy of stars, a canvas of a bazillion shimmering shining dots, there were as many dots above in the sky as there are grains of sand on an ocean beach. The universe is a traffic jam of stars. It is at once a scientific and spiritual experience.

Didi & I stood spell-bound. Then Didi spoke, no she sang; a Hindi song; her favorite love song for her little sister whose name “Swati” means a star; a constellation – “kabhi kabhi mere dil main khayal aata hai, ki jaise tujhko banaya gaya hai mere liye, tu abse pehle sitaron main bas rahi thi kahin, tujhe zameein par bulaya gaya hai mere liye.” – “Sometimes this thought comes to my mind, that you were made just for me. Before this time you were living somewhere among the stars, you have been brought to this earth just for me.”

“Happy Birthday, didi” I said in return.

Didi passed away not long after that trip. Maybe she became a grain of sand on an ocean beach. Or maybe she resides among the stars herself like the words of the song she once sang for me. But the memory of standing next to Didi atop the tallest mountain on Earth, in a place where they are still making new land, on that starry starry night is one I will never forget.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also the Director of Visual Media for a national non-profit and an environmentalist. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Wake up, it’s time to go.”

I opened my eyes, it was still dark but Didi; meaning elder sister in Hindi, was all dressed.

“Go where?” I asked half-awake and half-annoyed. It was a Sunday and I wanted to sleep.

“We are going for a drive. We need to leave before sunrise.” She replied in the no-nonsense, don’t argue with me, I am not hearing it way Didi would say things. I woke up.

While I was getting ready, she gave me a volley of information. She had already prepared tea, sandwiches, boiled eggs for wherever it was that we were going.

Within 15 minutes we were in the car.

“You are driving”, she handed me the keys. I got in the driver seat as Didi unfolded a paper map of the lower Hudson valley. Pre-Google, one had to learn to read paper maps. Skills that are now languishing. Didi was skilled at reading paper maps. She charted our course.

We used to live in Montvale, NJ, about 20 minutes away from Bear Mountain, NY, the gateway to Catskills. It was the Fall of 2002; and the last Sunday in October; the day when Daylight Saving Ended – before it was changed to the 1st Sunday in November. The Fall colors in the Lower Hudson Valley were at peak.

“Make a left to get on Palisades Parkway North”, Didi gave instructions while I drove. The sky was getting pale, clouds catching the first pink, orange, and red hues of the day. It was nearly day-break. Within 20 minutes we were at the entrance of Bear Mountain State Park.

“Now what?” I asked Didi, fully enrolled in her plan. Enthusiasm is contagious and I have always been happy to catch that disease! Besides I was fully awake, it’s amazing how that can improve a person’s mood.

She gave me further directions – left, right, left, we drove through some winding roads in the park and came to a parking next to a trail. “Let’s park here.”

We parked the car. Didi jumped out and grabbed the bag of breakfast items she had prepared & the Thermos with the tea. We walked together for a few minutes on the trail. The air was crisp. There was no one else in the park at the time, just the two of us. The only sound was out footsteps crunching the leaves. And birds getting ready to greet the morning. It was a Sunday, people were catching up on sleep, people without devious sisters! 😉

We reached the opening. And stood spell-bound. In front of us was Hessian Lake – nestled at the base of Bear Mountain that was awash in brilliant hues of gold, orange, and red. Its reflection in the lake-water formed a perfect mirror, doubling the fiery splendor of the foliage. The stillness of the water enhanced the symmetry, and the scene felt like a painting, with the vibrant colors of fall blending into the soft blue sky above. The sun was jusssst coming up.

“Wow” I said.

“Wow” Didi echoed.

We sat down on one of the picnic tables and watched the scenery in companionate silence. Two Indian girls who had bent the will of their culture, rejected wholesale the plans laid out for their lives as per the mores of their community, and had instead decided to craft their own destiny. Didi and I were birds too – who had dared to fly. And that flying had come at some cost. But that scene right there felt like a reward of the fraught journey we had embarked on together.

Didi broke the silence. “I saw a photo of this spot in the NY state guide book a few weeks ago. And I thought today was the perfect day to do this. Tea?”

She poured me a cup of tea from the Thermos she had packed at home. I accepted, grateful for the warmth in my hands.

“We can have breakfast here if you are hungry, or at our next stop…” Didi said.

She pulled out her the and showed me the plan for the day; her finger zigzagging through the back-roads of lower Hudson valley, crossing the bridge from West Hudson to East Hudson and moving through towns like Hyde Park, Pleasant Valley, Rhinebeck. I looked at my watch. “Can we cover all this today?”

“Yes we can! You know we get an extra hour added to our lives today, right?”

“I know it’s crazy”, I answered. Day light saving is an odd concept for people who grow up without it.

“And we didn’t even need to fly through other time zones to get this extra hour added to our lives!”

“Or get jet-lagged!” she added.

“I don’t know about that. I feel a bit jet-lagged right now.” I quipped, alluding to being woken up at the crack of dawn, NOT my favorite activity. She rolled her eyes.

“Listen I will that anything that adds time to my life. I am old.”

“You are 30.”

“Yes. Old!”

We continued our banter as we headed back to our car. We spent the rest of our day driving through the back-roads of Rockland and Westchester County, roads under a canopy of trees, the autumnal sun casting a warm, golden glow, softening the crisp edges of the cool air, its light dancing through the fiery leaves. We stopped at local cafes for coffee, and ate our own breakfast at a vista point overlooking the Hudson. We finished our journey at the Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park. We had our fill of autumn.

And that began an annual ritual that we repeated for the next several years until we moved out to LA.
Years later I came back to NY now but Didi was gone. I have made the same trip again – with tea and breakfast and Mark. But no Didi of course.

The memories of that drive; the reflection of Bear Mountain in Hessian Lake, the azure sky, the brilliant fall colors come alive for me during this time of year. They form some of my favorite memories with my sister – those last Sundays of October, the day that one extra hour was added to our lives, and we made the most of it. The time when day light changes.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and an immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Houston, we have a problem”, said Didi; which means elder-sister in Hindi. In this case, MY elder sister, was in the passenger seat while I was driving our 2000 Dodge Neon. We were on the Interstate I-80 somewhere in the middle of New Jersey. It was 1st of July 2004 and we were in the midst of another big move of our lives. Over the past several months & weeks Didi & I had packed up our lives on the east coast in favor of Los Angeles; the city of angels. We had arrived in America 4 years earlier as Software Engineers but with the dream of becoming “Sister-Directors” and we had decided it was time to pursue that dream for real. So we had packed our belongings on an ABF truck that was on its way to LA separately from us, while we were on our own cross country drive from New York to Los Angeles; our journey through America, from sea to shining sea.

A 2-week journey that spans the length of a country; especially a country that you had arrived in just 4 years earlier and barely knew anything about, requires careful planning. Especially as you consider that this journey took place when Google barely existed. Cell phones were rare. And Social Media wasn’t even a gleam in the eye of Mark Zuckerberg. Didi and I had slogged together for weeks researching and calling motels across the country making reservations. We had saved all that information including the driving directions from Point A to Point B for each day in the one laptop we shared between us. We did have a printed sheet with contact info for all the hotels but everything else was in our laptop – which we had intended to charge on our journey through an inverter that was meant to give 120 volts AC from the cigarette lighter socket on the car. With teary eyes, we had said Goodbye to our life on the east coast and embarked on the journey. 2 hours later we had stopped at a gas station on I-80 and now we were back in the car to resume. I was ready to drive and was waiting for Didi to boot the laptop again so she could give me the directions to Pittsburg. But the laptop failed to boot. Entirely.

Houston we had a problem – not as big as the astronauts on Apollo 13 of course, but a pretty big one. We went through the customary stages of grief – denial; trying to boot the laptop over & over in hopes it will somehow resuscitate, anger; after all this effort how on earth could this be happening on the 1st day of our trip?, bargaining – come on laptop, just work once so we can make essential notes, depression – we are doomed, this entire journey is doomed, and eventually acceptance. Having learnt our lesson – never to trust technology exclusively – Didi pulled out an old paper map which we did carry in the back of the car. We could at least make our way to Pittsburg and figure out way around the city & to our hotel later.

And so we did. We reached Pittsburg. We bought a city map. At the hotel, we begged & were allowed to use their computer to make paper notes for the driving directions for the next couple of days. We did the same for every city we stayed at – relying on paper maps, our hand-written notes and some good-old asking for directions from strangers – who were almost always curious, friendly and kind. Our journey took us through the heart of America; in Pittsburg we saw the old steel mills that fueled American capitalism, and in St. Louis Missouri we saw the most impressive 4th of July fireworks. We visited majestic national parks – Yellowstone, Ziii-on, Bryce and Grand Canyon, and we saw cities shaped by the hand of man such as Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Those were some of the places we had hoped & planned to see.

And we got lost – a lot. That showed us the America we hadn’t planned to see, the America we didn’t know existed, the America that shook our immigrant naiveté. For example, there was the time when we were stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and I asked for directions from the Caucasian couple filling their tank in the car next to us; they looked at us with disdain and refused to answer; that told us there were American towns where residents didn’t like brown people. And there was the time when a bunch of Caucasian guys in their 20s standing outside a hotel called us “maid service”; racism at its best! And there was the time when we lost our way through South Dakota and instead of Mount Rushmore National Memorial ended up at Crazy Horse Memorial – which gave us a lesson in American history so stark, so brutal & so unlike the America of our imagination, it shook us to our core.

It is almost exactly 20 years since I undertook that journey. There have been other times in my life when I have lost all direction and had to improvise. I even lost my co-pilot when Didi passed away from cancer not long after that cross-country trip together, and for a while I lost all bearing. I had to learn to navigate by my own internal compass – aided sometimes by memory, sometimes by little bits of paper on which I wrote & which were my sustenance, and sometimes by asking for & relying on strangers’ help.

The journey we undertook was nothing like the journey we had planned or imagined. It was by getting lost that we found something – something precious. At the end of our journey as we stood in front of the Pacific Ocean, I knew I had barely scratched the surface of the country I now called home. But also that in order to love anything completely, one must have the courage to learn & tell – the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For it is the darkness that gives depth & meaning to the light.

The journey I had planned was a journey through America, it took getting lost for it to become My American Journey.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and an immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“Mummy, Dada! I came top in my class of 800! Are you proud of me?”, the message pops up on my phone. It’s Sophie; our exchange student-daughter. She is texting from France where she returned after staying with us for a year of high-school. During her year with us, we became so close that she started calling me mummy and Mark dada. We fit perfectly like pieces of a puzzle. When she left, it was like going through surgery, no one wanted it but it was mandatory. Back in France she is at a top college. And of 800 students, she is the topper, pretty impressive, huh?

Mark texted back effortlessly, “yes proud of you – and missing you – love Dada”. I wrote, “ummm…only a little bit” with lots of naughty emojis.

Later I confess to Mark – I didn’t know how to properly respond to Sophie’s question. Mark asks me why.

I find myself breaking into tears.

I grew up in an Indian household with a demanding, hard to please father. He held me – and my sister – to a high standard, we had to earn his love. He told my sister & me how hard he had worked to earn his station in life – which was true. He was a self-made man, the eldest son in a poor family who rose to become a successful engineer earning two doctorates, and winning numerous national & international awards. Most people we knew looked up to him as a paragon of success. He looked up to him as a paragon of success. He was proud of himself. – Just a little too proud – for humans around him.

I don’t recall ever feeling that there was a pre-requisite to earn my mother’s love. With her, I felt safe. But that safety shattered when she passed away when I was a teenager. The ensuing years were difficult – my father quickly remarried – and now we seemed to have an avatar of the fairytale step-mother. She took the crack between our father and us, and turned into it a gulf. My father became more & more proud of himself – and harder & harder to impress. – But children are children and they continue to seek validation from their parents long after they reach adulthood. Somewhere deep inside, I wanted my father- my one living parent – to see me, to acknowledge me, to say he was proud of me. But – the words never came. Even when I won the All India Gold Medalist award at my masters, he didn’t say those words. Even when my sister & I moved to America to follow our dreams, the dreams that he himself had inculcated in us, he didn’t say the words. Even when we finished our UCLA course in film with multiple distinctions – an education from a top film-school that we had self-funded, he didn’t say the words.

And then my sister died of cancer. And all the words felt frivolous. What did it matter what we said or didn’t say? No words mattered to me anymore – for a while.

Then I met Mark. After living together for 7 years we got married. As a wedding gift, I gave him a folly, a trifle, a t-shirt with a funny line that said “proud husband of a freaking awesome Indian wife.” I thought he would wear it once and we would have a laugh. He did wear it – but not just once. Instead, he wore down that first t-shirt and then bought another one and then another. He wore it on the film sets where I was directing and he wore it when I was invited as guest speaker at occasions. He wore it during fun times and he wore it when I was sick, and especially on days I felt anxious or depressed. I have only just started to realize he is trying to tell me something! 🙂

For years my relationship with the words “pride or proud” has been difficult. I have never felt or uttered the words “I am proud of myself”. For I have seen first-hand how pride in oneself can turn into arrogance & how destructive that can be for relationships. And being proud of someone else requires a sense of “ownership” – it makes a bold statement to life that says, “you are my person – and you are cool – so I am proud of you”; losing my sister who I had claimed from life as my person makes that difficult for me. That is what made my reply to Sophie so complicated. She has her own family in France, her own people who claim her, who ought to be proud of her. Who am I to make that claim?

I – don’t – know – what happened – but this week for the first time in decades and out of the blue my father posted a picture of me on his Facebook wall with the line “I am proud of your accomplishments…keep it up”.

I was struck. What just happened? What did I suddenly do to be worthy of his pride? – Maybe the ice between us is thawing. Maybe time; that great healer is doing its job. Maybe the father is beginning to see his daughter. Whatever it is, my eyes misted over as I read that line on his wall over and over again. I wrote back a simple thank you.

But receiving that unexpected gift reminded me of something significant. Everything is possible in life. It is possible for a father to send an unexpected answer to a question his estranged daughter was grappling with, and it is possible for a half-mom to claim her French student-daughter as her own. For the truth is no one truly belongs to us, we only belong to life. But being proud of someone is an act of courage – it says no matter what happens tomorrow, but for this moment in time – you are a part of me and you are cool and I am proud of you.

So I sent Sophie another message, it said “Dearest Sophie, I am proud of your accomplishments, keep it up….love mummy”.

And I wore this t-shirt (“Proud wife of a Freaking Awesome British husband!“).

Swati Srivastava is a proud wife, mom and sister. She is also an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“You must be so proud of your dad”, the lady in the dazzling white sari said at the award ceremony. “He is a very smart man. Are you as smart as he is?” she asked me. “I am.” I answered without missing a beat, I was 9 years old. This evoked laughter among the adults around me. “She is your daughter indeed, Srivastav”, the lady said to my father with a chuckle. My father smiled benevolently at me, neither acknowledging nor refuting my statement. Maybe he thought I was as smart as he was. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just too busy doing the smart things he did. In his young life, he had accomplished a lot. A self-made man, he came from a poor family in a small village in India; his life was a shining example of being a family record-breaker. The first one to go to college, the first one to become an engineer, he got a job in All India Radio; India’s equivalent of the BBC, establishing the first computer department there. He traveled abroad – Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, UK, US. He presented papers at international conferences on Radio technology. At home, we were the first family in our neighborhood to have a color TV, the first to buy a car, the first to have two cars. He was obviously the smarter, cooler person in most rooms he inhabited, a cut above the rest. When he spoke, people listened. And he spoke – a lot. He had a lot to say of course. He was so smart.

And he was my father. And I was like him. I was smart too. So he was proud of me. Maybe. Or maybe not.
I definitely wanted to be like my father. I was what the west calls a “daddy’s girl”. In the India of 1980s, this was most unusual. It was unusual that he expected me and my sister to have careers of our own; he wanted us to study, study, study, to ace everything we did, to come top of our class. He wanted us to be smart. And not stupid. Definitely not stupid. I didn’t want to be stupid. It was very clear that my father didn’t like stupid.

I spent most of my childhood working hard and studying hard. I liked studying and I was very ambitious. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say “India Gandhi”. For those who do not know, Indira Gandhi was the prime minister in the early 1980s; the first female prime minister of India, we had a female head of state in 1967 people!

When Aunties and other female elders asked me if I knew any of the “girl crafts” like cooking, I would turn up my nose and tell them what my father taught me – my job in life was to do great things; such as becoming an engineer or a doctor or a political leader, I could leave simple things like cooking or other accouterments of home-making and house-keeping to the less educated, less smart people around me.

I wonder what my mother thought about me saying those things. After all she was fairly well educated lady; a great cook, an extremely efficient home-keeper, a sitar-player, a brilliant hostess who could throw a get-together of some 50-odd people on her own. A devoted wife and mother, she was adept at all those things that women of her generation neither got paid nor got thanked for – the delicious home-made meals infused with love, the prim and proper home ready to receive guests at the drop of a hat, the caretaking of older family members, the constant & stable presence for kids to come home to & share their hearts with. My mother was also a talented tailor and knitter who made my sister & me dresses for all the special occasions of our life and knitted her husband his sweaters, saving precious money for our family. My mother was like the anchor to our sails, the ground to all our flights. She made our house a home.

But she wasn’t an engineer or a doctor or a political leader. Being a house-wife she didn’t earn actual money. This meant she wasn’t smart. At least not in my father’s eyes. So he criticized her, ridiculed her, dismissed her. He called her stupid and ignorant. He told her she wasn’t worthy of him.

I wonder what she thought about that.

Back to the award ceremony; the annual gala of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting union, where my father was going to receive his 5th consecutive award for a paper he had written & presented as a radio-engineer. Surrounded with people who admired & idolized him, he seemed entirely at home. He was a self-made man who had pulled himself by his boot straps. It was clear to the sighted that he was proud of himself.
The ceremony began. My mother and I were sitting next to each other. My father was backstage. The welcome speech was followed by a classical dance performance; I could see my mother enjoying it from the vantage of someone who has insider knowledge of a craft. Under the burden and busyness of her domestic life & obligations, her own sitar was languishing somewhere in the house, her own writing journal forgotten in the closet.

Next came the awards. Person No.1, Person No.2, Person No. 3 – my father’s name was called, the name of his paper was mentioned, it was announced that he was representing India at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union awards. I saw my father emerge and go up the steps to receive his award. I excitedly turned to my mother to point out I had seen my dad but the words remain unsaid in my mouth. I saw my mother’s face – awash with tears, her eyes looking at the man ascending the steps of recognition and glory, the man whose life & home she had anchored through her own life-force, the man whose ambitions were underpinned by the sacrifice of her own dreams, the man she loved.

The man she was proud of.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home with her life-partner. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

“I was placed in a foster home when I was 9 years old, my 3 older siblings were placed in other homes as well,” said Lynette; an African-American woman in her early 50s. It was May 2023 and we were at a conference at Suffolk County DSS; Department of Social Services, sharing our reasons for being there. The question was what had inspired each one of us to want to become foster parents. Lynette; was sharing her story.

“My parents divorced when I was 7 and although my father paid child support, which meant my mother didn’t have to work, she had no capacity to raise 4 children.” Lynette continued. ”My mother had a lot of psychological issues – she had no friends, she was a recluse, she had trouble keeping the house in order, she mostly spent her days sleeping. Finally someone made a complaint and the state stepped in. My siblings were all in their teens, we were placed separately. I was placed with Mrs. Judith. Mrs. Judith was to my mother – as a cat is to….a banana!”

We all laughed. While listening to Lynette, I was also thinking of how I was going to answer this question myself. It’s amazing how our brains multi-task! The short answer to the question for me – and for Mark – was that although we didn’t have biological kids, our experience hosting our two international exchange students – someone else’s children – had been so rewarding – both had become our daughters for life – that when one of the girl’s coordinators told us about the world of fostering, it had felt like a natural next step. But that WAS the short answer. Answers to the bigger questions of our lives are seldom that simple.

When Mark and I first met, we were both grieving. I was grieving the loss of my beloved sister – my person, my family, my co-dreamer and my fellow-walker. Mark was grieving the end of an 18 year old marriage to someone who was not able to be a wife due to her own mental challenges. Neither of us had any kids. We talked about having biological children. But that conversation almost always ended in tears. Memories of my sister & me dreaming about raising our kids together remained sharply hurtful.

But we were sure – Mark & I – that we wanted to adopt. We looked into adoption, even international adoption – from India – and all of it felt like a tedious, bureaucratic affair that took years out of one’s life. And our lives & work spread across Los Angeles, New York City and Long Island were already full to the brim. How could two immigrants – with demanding careers and without a family or village of their own – adopt & raise kids in a country that offers little to no meaningful form of governmental support to facilitate child-rearing. The process looked daunting, especially to our weary hearts, we still had a lot of grieving to do.

Time passed. Mark and I made a life together and helped heal each other’s heart.

Then Covid happened – forcing us and allowing us to fully move our lives to Bay Shore, to finally be in one place. In 2022, while recovering from a major illness and seeking companionship & community, I saw a post on Nextdoor asking for families to host international students. Thank you Barb for holding our hand and helping us fill-out the paperwork to be approved in time for the school year. We went from having no children to having two teenage daughters from two different countries in a matter of weeks. When it rains, it pours!

It was a match made in heaven, we adored the girls and they adored us right back. We came to learn they also needed healing from their own personal traumas, and we learnt that we were able to help them through some very challenging issues. So when one of the girls’ coordinators told us of her prior experience working in the foster system & said “there are so many kids in the foster system who would love to have you as their family”, we knew that life was talking to us.

But a doubt nagged – kids in the foster system have often been severely traumatized, what if they are beyond our help? What if we they don’t let us in? What if..?

“Mrs. Judith was a gregarious lady.” Lynette continued “Her door was always open to her friends. She worked in the community, listened to people’s troubles, hosted many get-togethers and had a big laugh – I can still hear it.” Lynette paused as if she could really hear the laughter. “Being in her house taught me how it feels to be truly alive and what it means to live. We were finally sent back to our mother, even though she was never fully functional and always blamed the state for taking her kids away. I was not allowed to speak about Mrs. Judith even after Mrs. Judith passed away. When I got on my own feet, I told my mother I wanted to foster kids too but my mom told me that would make her feel like a failure. So I never did.” Lynette started tearing up, “My mother passed away last year. And although I am sad at losing her, I am finally free to foster children – so I can say to Mrs. Judith – you taught me how to live – and I am ready to pay if forward. “

We were all in tears. When my turn came, I gave the short answer. We spent a whole year training and preparing the house. We finally got certified last week.

When I feel nervous about what this new chapter might entail, I remember Lynette and her Mrs. Judith. And I know this. When Mark and I met, our hearts were singing their own sad melodies. But somehow through life’s grace our melodies harmonized. And we were able to write a new song together. Something similar happened with our exchange student-daughters. Soon we will have foster-kids, their own broken hearts singing their own melodies. But with life’s permission – and with the support of our new village – I am hopeful that our melodies will harmonize too.

And there will be a new song.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and an immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com
 

“I want –to- be a part of it. New York..” – A group of 20 something men singing the iconic Sinatra song was blocking our way, singing and laughing, a little bit drunk, but mostly high on life. One of them spoke to us in accented English, “it’s a great show, you will love it!” There were other happy faces around. We made our way to the entrance of The Jazz Club. A lanky man in his 40s greeted us. “Good evening!” He had the eyes of someone who had seen history. “We would like to buy two tickets for the Swing show.” I answered. “Sorry, we have just sold out,” he said.

“Oh no!” I was so disappointed.

The Jazz Club we were at, is called Reduta. It is located in Prague, which is the capital city of Czech Republic, and which is where I was exactly one month ago.

Prague, called “Praha” by locals, is not merely a city; it’s a poem written in stone, a melody composed of history and legend. Europe’s art & culture has collided for over a millennia in Prague; its history, art & architecture a rich tapestry of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-classical, and Modern threads. Hilter – so loved Prague, he wanted to save it for himself, so Prague escaped the bombing that befell many other European cities during WWII, its medieval center is still mostly preserved. This didn’t mean Prague escaped heartache. Prague suffered some of the worst Fascism and Communism in the 20th century, most notably after the Prague Spring reforms of 1968 were brutally crushed when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague and quashed all attempts for democracy for the next 20 years.

But Prague endured. Czechoslovakia, as it was then, finally found its freedom through The Velvet Revolution; a non-violent transition of power, one of many inspiring examples of what is possible when ordinary people engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and do not give up no matter the odds.

What also endured is Reduta; The Jazz Club in Prague. It became particularly famous for having hosted an impromptu saxophone performance by American president Bill Clinton in 1994, who had returned to Prague a few days prior to our own visit to mark their 30th anniversary of joining NATO, a day of celebration for the Czech people. Democracy is very new and precious for the Czechs and this is palpable. What is also palpable is their unease about the war Russia is waging on their neighbor Ukraine. The majority of people alive in Prague today personally remember the brutality and oppression of living behind the Iron Curtain as a Soviet satellite state. They see Russian aggression on the rise again and dread losing their hard-earned freedom. They see the NATO alliance as the bulwark against an existential threat.

And they look at America – as the beacon of hope – that many in the world still do, the same hope that immigrants still carry in their hearts. America was the country that helped birth modern Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I in 1918. America was the country that helped bring them freedom from the terror of Nazi Germany in World War II. And while they suffered under the boot of the totalitarian communism of the Soviet Union from the 50s to 80s, America was the country that gave them hope, its music – jazz, swing, blues continued to play in The Jazz Club Reduta & still does.

And now I was standing at the entrance of this very Jazz club and being told that the tickets to the Swing tribute I was there to see had been sold out!

“Oh no!” I was so disappointed.

The lanky man offered a solution. “We do have another Swing concert next Thursday.” “But this is our last-night in Prague,” I answered remorsefully. “I am sorry, where are you visiting from?” he asked with a polite smile. “New York.” I answered. “New York, New York?!!” the man’s eyes grew wider and his smile got warmer. I nodded. “Then we must make sure you see the show!” He walked away into the music hall and after a few moments re-appeared, a big grin across his face. “I can organize 2 extra stools, so you can watch the show, would that be okay?” My husband and I, pleasantly surprised at the sudden VIP treatment, graciously accepted his offer. “Look” the man steered me towards a large sign-in book, flipped one page, and there it was; Bill Clinton’s signature with the words “my third wonderful visit, thank you. March 10th 2024”.

He ushered us into an intimate hall packed with people sitting on sofas enjoying drinks, surrounded with walls decked with photos of the great jazz musicians who had all performed there. We spent the next two hours experiencing 4 phenomenally talented musicians who performed American classics by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. When the lead singer led the sing-along for Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”, it was as if the Czech people were singing their own song. And his rendering of “New York, New York” brought the house down. I laughed and cried through it all, it had been a while since I had experienced such unabashed love and joy for America. It was as I had left America to find America.

As I experienced this profound moment, I suddenly realized that America is no longer just a nation – if it ever was. America has become a mythology, an idea, an ember that smolders in the heart of anyone who still aspires to reach a little higher, who still dreams a few impossible dreams and who dares to keep faith in the face of some overwhelming odds. We who live here may fight, bicker and doomsay as much as we want, but the ideal of America is alive and well in hearts all around the world. We who live here may doubt the promise of America; a luxury we can afford, but not those who live outside, their faith still strong, just like those singing their hearts out, in places like The Jazz Club.

Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and an immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

The website for Jazz Club Reduta is https://www.redutajazzclub.cz/en

I am listening to my brilliant and menopausal acting coach as she goes through another one
of her hot flashes. “For a couple of minutes my brain shuts down. All I can think of is I am
on fire. And I am panicking because I am in the middle of an audition which makes me feel
even hotter…“

And I am thinking of “Ginger Rogers” – the woman who not only did everything Fred Astaire
did backwards and in heels, but also while menstruating, cramping, menopausing. How the
hell did we forget to include all that? How the hell did we agree to compete with men at their
level, on their terms, at their speed? By pretending of course and hiding and lying.
By pretending that periods, and cramping, and hemorrhaging and peri-menopausing and
hot-flashing and menopausing are aberrations to be ignored or sidelined as we go through
the “real” business of – taking care of “business”. By hiding our aches & pains in order to
look desirable, competitive, perfect. By lying to everyone that we can do it all despite our
gender, despite our bleeding/ sagging bodies begging for a reprieve. By lying to ourselves
that we can be just as fast, just as productive, just as equal. We can be men, please pretty
please, just let us in.

We women can be great liars. It’s not surprising, given that our survival often depends on it.
Some of us pop pills to stop the cramping and migraines that come with our periods, in order
to finish the shift on the factory floor or deliver the corporate report on time. Because
having a period-migraine or PMS is not a valid excuse. Others juggle the demands of work &
family with IUD appointments, D&C and endometrial ablation, omega-3 & estrogen
supplements to stem the non-stop bleeding that often accompanies peri-menopause. And
yet others put on fake smiles in the board-room and sit through meetings never breathing a
word about the night sweats, the hot flashes, the bodies & brains on fire. Because God forbid
we paused the meeting for a few minutes while we let the hot flash pass. Will the board stop
and wait for us to recover? Or will it decide that women are a burden, a drag, a liability?
Women need too much time out. Women hold “’productivity” back. A woman’s place is in
the house!

I look around at the NY Subway station – at the women rushing about, multi-tasking, hyper-
achieving, ignoring the cries of their bodies. My eyes mist as I see ALL women as super-women.
Learning to suffer her pain in silence is almost a design feature of being a woman.
We don’t dare complain because we are afraid the grip on our hard-earned seat at the table
is slippery as it is. We are guarded and on-guard because our victories in the world are new &
fragile. We are scared of being pushed back “for our own good”. So, we try to compete in a
male world, shaped by male bodies, on a male idea of time and productivity. We try to survive
in a world shaped by the male gaze, such that even our blockbuster heroines like Wonder
Woman and the new Captain Marvel are masculine in every way except the shape of their
bodies, which is dressed or shall I say, half-dressed, in clothes that fulfill male fantasy. Never once is
their femininity with its messy problems even hinted at. Does Wonder Woman’s large
breasts ever interfere with her arrow-shooting skills – Amazonian women were said to have
cauterized girls’ right breasts to solve that problem, but the movie never mentions it – afraid
the problems of female reality would be too unpalatable to a hyper-masculine society? Does
U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers AKA Captain Marvel or “I am no man” Éowyn in Lord of
the Rings or the time-traveling nurse Claire in Outlander menstruate when she is hanging
out with an army or brigade of men? Forget the women in Game of Thrones; that hyper-masculine
orgy of sex and violence, its heroines are much too larger-than-life to contend
with the mundane problems that come with actually being a woman.

Growing up, I used to love reading stories of adventure whose heroes were invariably men.
On the rare occasion when there was a heroine involved, she was often pre-occupied with
dressing up like a man, pretending to be a man, mingling with men. This often left me un-
satiated as I found myself wondering – what if she had bigger breasts, how would she strap
them down? What does she do when her time arrives each month? Does she have an ever-
lasting supply of pads/ tampons in the middle of the forest? And what about peri-
menopause? Even daring to imagine any of these effervescent ever-youthful heroines to be
older than 40 is a heroic act! But if through some sheer miracle the heroine does live to be over
40, does she ever go through what many of us go through; bleeding straight for 10 – 20 – 30
days, being at our wits end? Never mentioning something doesn’t make it disappear but it
does trivialize it, as if the concerns & pre-occupations of an entire gender can be something
worth easy dismissal. It’s sad how our society loves hyper-sexualizing women’s bodies but
actually never tries to peer beneath what it feels like to be inside one. As a result we dwell in
fantasy and hide the actual nitty-gritty of life, when the real marvel of story-telling, as the
great writer Aaron Sorkin puts it, is in exploring “how does it happen when it really
happens”. I am still waiting for one of these modern day rendering of heroines to lay it out
for us.

Back in real life, I wonder why is it that my doctor has been recommending Colonoscopy
and breast self-exams to me for years but never once mentioned how to prepare my body for
the onslaught of my peri-menopausal years? Why is it only now when I ask my girlfriends
older than me that they share stories of their bodies’ trauma and their struggles juggling the
balls they always juggled but with the added pressure of “the change”? Why is it that the
only solace my doctor had to offer me about the sudden anxiety and struggles that have beset my
life is the statement “Welcome to your 40s” and a wink? Why are such profound changes treated as afterthoughts? Why are such enormous challenges dismissed as mere inconveniences? Where are the women’s circles to initiate and guide? Or for that matter, where are the men’s circles?

Overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all, I am overcome with the feeling that all men are
complicit in the state of affairs (women too of course but mostly not by choice). The best of
men are compassionate to their own wives, and give massages and make tea. It is a great
start but not enough. The needle needs to be moved; it requires having a dialogue with
others, and influencing others. It requires questioning the status quo of maximizing “fake
productivity” that constantly threatens to leave behind the gender whose perceived slowness
stems from being the carrier of “real productivity” – the productivity of life. After all, much
of what makes us different from men and shapes our lives is because nature made us the
bearer of children. And whether we bear those children or not, our bodies tell us where we
are in the circle of life far more acutely than do men’s bodies. Besides, what has this quest
for fake productivity, this insistence on being fast and hyper-competitive delivered us? A
race to the bottom? A devastated planet? A growing disconnect with our fellow beings? Tech-bros?

One could argue nature itself is unfair, it has no interest in the individual well being or
personal achievement or happiness, all it cares for is evolution. So, as far as nature is
concerned the female gender is simply the vehicle for the next generation – her personal
dreams and happiness be damned. But as a society the male gender has long claimed to
care about fulfillment of dreams and the pursuit of happiness. It’s time we as a society
include the happiness of all genders in the conversation. It’s time to slow down not just so
that one gender can take a breath & walk through life with grace, but so all of us can breathe
& walk through life with grace. It’s time to have a conversation about what it really means to
be a woman.

More than a filmmaker/storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She is also an environmentalist and a first generation immigrant to the United States. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com

I sit down to write.
Never really sure if I weave a story
or if it’s the story that weaves me

It is creative some days
but agonizing in many ways
Some agonies just agonies of the art
but others are peculiar to my heart.

They say good stories come
from heart’s deepest recesses
whence battles have scratched, gnawed, wrung,
left scars & abscesses

It’s a torment to remember the pain
I flinch my heart would bleed again.
But should forgetting become my aim
I dread if I would forget my name.

I go on striving to equalize
my doings, my writings, my being.
And neglect what was once surmised
“On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe’s* water with his wing.”

I sit down to write.

Lethe*- In Classical Greek, Lethe literally means “forgetfulness” or “concealment” .
River Lethe is the one that souls on their way to heaven / purgatory drink from to forget their lives.
“On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe’s water with his wing. ” – Walter Savage Landor.

When she died,
I thought I had an ocean in my eyes
an ocean that would never dry up
no matter how many salty tears it cries.

Years passed.
The wound sealed.
Somehow I lived.
My innards steeled.

Yesterday I cried again
the ocean in my eyes spilled
the taste of tears on my lips
not salty but chilled.

Maybe my eyes
have cried out their ocean
Rather what I tasted
was steely ice in motion.

Maybe it is in the normal order of things,
to turn from ocean into glacier.