CarrieDaway

Scaachi Koul is an every-woman version of Mindy Kaling and her memoir One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter is as thought-provoking and entertaining as Kaling’s. Here are some highlights:

On Being Brown

The ceremony didn’t technically start until 6 p.m., Standard Brown Time, meaning it would actually start at seven (it ended up starting at eight)…

Always.

Scaachi is Canadian and her parents are Indian. She writes about a lot of things but at the core it all comes back to her brownness and that is something I can relate to. Even though it shouldn’t, your color plays a role in your human experience. Whether you’re of Asian, African, Middle Eastern or Latin descent, us colored folks have familiar bonds that tie us all together.

(Irrational?) Fear

INTERESTING HOW YOU THOUGHT IT WAS ACCEPTABLE TO NOT CALL ANYONE FOR NINE DAYS. HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT TIME. I AM FURIOUS WITH YOU AND AM NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN.

I’m pretty sure that text is in my phone multiple times. If I don’t hear from certain people in a set period of time, I immediately assume they’re dead. When Lucas is old enough to leave the house, I’m going to lose my mind.

Women

Rape culture isn’t a natural occurrence; it thrives thanks to the dedicated attention given to women in order to take away their security… women are so used to being watched that we don’t notice when someone’s watching us for the worst reason imaginable.

Koul’s chapter on our rape/surveillance culture (pages 163 to 172) is brilliant and thought-provoking. We have a serious ‘female’ problem in this world and a long way to go before things are better.

Hair

For me, hair has always meant shame…

Truer words have never been spoken. It goes beyond the hair on our heads but the hair on the rest of our bodies! It was refreshing to read about someone else feeling the same ways I did as a kid about body hair. I remain permanently scarred from my high school child development class because my teacher mocked the women giving birth (!) in a video for her pubic hair.

Parents

Few things get less complicated as you age, but your family, that at least should become easier. You should eventually make peace with everyone, with their decisions and their quirks. With your parents in particular, you should fight less because you have less time to fight.

I think this is advice every teenager should get. I remember how unbearable life felt in my teens and my relationship with my parents was my #1 challenge. If I knew that got better I would have enjoyed life more – especially since everything else only gets harder.