I bet my life on love.

Nearly thirty years ago, I left India for America, not for work or adventure, but for love.

I met my husband Thomas in Nepal. We came from different worlds: he was an itinerant artist from America. I was an Indian journalist raised in a conventional intergenerational household.

For a tradition-bound Indian woman, the move to America was a fairly bold gamble. I moved across continents and two oceans for a man whose culture, race, and language I did not share, and to a country where I had no history, no friends, and no family.

I built a life here from the ground up, not just as a partner, but as a woman learning to hold her own voice in a new world. It wasn’t always easy. Love, even the right kind, can test you. But it taught me what every lasting relationship eventually demands: self-understanding, patience, and commitment.

The risk I took paid off. Handsomely. Now I have history, friends, and family.