My uncle had a tradition. On every birthday and anniversary in the family, he would write a poem, taking the letters of a name and beginning each line with one, so the name ran down the page if you knew to look. Some were profound, and some were wonderfully silly, but every one was an act of showing up. I do not have his gift for verse, so I write letters instead, to the people who have shaped my life, occasion or not. If reading them inspires you to write to someone while they can still read it, these letters have done their job.
Letters from Rumi
The Feeling
A letter to the most remarkable person I have known, nine years late, and an invitation to the party she asked for and never got.
The Anchor
A letter to my cousin, three years late, about what cricket taught me regarding the quiet ones who hold a family's innings together.
Wholehearted
I started this letter the week my best friend’s son was born. It took me three years to finish it.
The Shibboleth
I had not willingly entered a temple in ten years. I have not missed a Saturday since April. This letter is my attempt to explain what changed.
The Advocate
A letter about my mom’s brilliance, the dream she was denied, and the fifty-year career nobody calls a career. This is the story of what she built, and the reason I dedicated my new beginning to her.
The Quiet Consigliere
Five years after we lost him, a letter to my father's truest friend, who kept our books on Saturdays and kept the wolves from our door without ever asking for credit.
The Family Tree
I began a family trip needing my mother to explain how I was related to everyone on it. I came down the mountain knowing the tree by heart.
Lessons From My Uncle
A birthday letter to the man who took in a sheltered fourteen-year-old from Mumbai and taught him everything, from loading a dishwasher to facing a crisis.
The Letter Vinod Will Never Read
Our driver cannot read or write, yet he was among the first to learn I was going to be a father. This is the letter he will never read, and the reason he earned it.
The Christmas Letter
What the regrets of the dying taught me about the life I was living, and the decision Janvi and I finally found the courage to announce.