Indian. Girl -

So do not reduce her to a stereotype. Do not call her exotic or docile or angry or mystical.

Indian. A passport. A history of spices and silk, of colonizers and nuclear treaties. The smell of turmeric that won’t wash out from under her fingernails. The weight of a mother’s gold bangles clicking like a warning: Remember who you are. indian. girl

She is rewriting the sentence every single day. And she is not asking for your permission to finish it. So do not reduce her to a stereotype

She has been called too modern by relatives who measure her value in modesty and marriage proposals. She has been called too traditional by classmates who don’t understand why she can’t just “rebel already.” So she has learned to exist in the in-between. To be a bridge made of bone and bravery. A passport

She is simply this: a girl who belongs to a billion dreams and one stubborn, magnificent country. A girl who knows that the word Indian is not a cage, and the word girl is not a ceiling.

She is not a problem to be solved or a mystery to be unraveled.