Indu Subaiya is a writer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles by way of Bangalore, India. Her essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Stone Canoe, Writing the Resistance, Animal Literary Magazine, and Immigrant Report. She also wrote and directed the autofiction short film The Apartment. She's an alumnus of the Voices of our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) and received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Antioch University.

Accidental Altars

from The Rumpus

“Before these last few years, my Catholic Protestant heritage as an Indian American woman married to a Russian Jewish man with a biracial son was mostly a good thing. But Trump’s election and the climate in this country afterward upended the basket of identities I carried around so casually; now, a nagging, headless specter seemed to follow me everywhere, whispering choose.

In his memoir, Brown, Richard Rodriguez describes the paradox (to some) of being gay, Catholic and Hispanic American in fruitarian terms: “When you slice an avocado, the pit has to go with one side or the other, doesn’t it?” My answer to Rodriguez is a qualified yes. An undisturbed avocado is a peaceful fruit, carrying its heart in its center, balanced. The choice of which side the pit goes, is only on the occasion of the avocado’s wholeness being severed and exposed.”

…

On Arrival

from Immigrant Report

“My stepmother is my introduction to America and I am her introduction to being a mother. We are both immigrants in that sense, me in my new country, she in her new daughter’s life.

For now, I am waiting. Intezar. It’s one of those Hindi words that doesn’t translate perfectly into English. There’s a whole host of these in different languages, a testament to how much more there is to say, always. Technically, Intezar means ‘waiting’—but it’s a specific kind of waiting. Full of desire, and yearning, but it’s likely for something that can never be, or someone who will never arrive. It is a lover’s promise. I will wait for you. Forever, if I have to.”

…

The Opposite of Resistance Is…

from Writing the Resistance

“As we talk more about our families I think about how this year had turned private spaces inside out and forced us to internalize public spaces.  And in the mixing of these dislocations, will there be combustion or a more perfect recombination? 

Marsian, the avante guard puppet artist, posts a video of himself doing a handstand in front of a yoga studio in slow motion. The world is upside down.  I wonder about the Women’s March of the coming year. I wonder what it will really be the anniversary of.”

…

Lost | Found

from Stone Canoe

“I went to Pune once to visit my mother in the hospital and then, unexpectedly, to bury her. I was two years old.

The places we visit when we’re “too yount to remember” might still wind their way into memory. We recall them differently from later memories, maybe through smell or an inexplicable sense of comfort when we return. Pune was a place like this. I don’t remember my mother who I called Amma… Amy suggested I return to the place I saw my mother last. Maybe then I can access and process any visceral impresions of her I might remember. I’m not sure I want to; I’m not sure I’ll be able to.”

…

Here, Not Together

from Animal literary Magazine

“Just a few black letters on a white screen, but the scene assembles itself instantly.  We were on a flat clearing with tall rocks behind us that we hoped would buffer us against the wind, but around the bend, the tents came at us, wild, lopsided, empty, tossed about by a disorganized wind, abandoning their owners without shelter. Taking note, we foraged for rocks heavy enough to ground an object but light enough to carry and placed them inside our tent in the corners, along the edges, as the yellow light turned pink then blue then grey then black ink. And we slept safely.”

…

The Price Is Not Right. Indu Subaiya Speaks out

From The KHIT Blog

“That’s great you say. We’ll keep this thriving and virtuous economy alive, we’re just going to get rid of the individual mandate, some nasty corporate penalties and poorly run exchanges that limit choice and raise premiums for patients and we’ll handle pre-existing conditions with hiving off those patients into separate pools. But that’s a fool’s errand.
 
 It was precisely because the ACA widened the tent of coverage that new private sector markets were created. It was precisely because of exchanges that Americans woke up to the fact that you need to take responsibility for your health and spend your pre-deductible dollars wisely, and private sector businesses rose to the occasion to build tools to educate consumers on managing health care expenses and decision-making.”

…