Usha Raj | The Smart Set https://www.thesmartset.com A magazine of arts & culture from Drexel University Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:22:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 Arranging Love https://www.thesmartset.com/arranging-love/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=arranging-love https://www.thesmartset.com/arranging-love/#respond Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=62746 Years after my mother had died, on a visit to my father in his childhood home in Nagercoil, India, where he had settled after his retirement, he told me he had always wanted to marry a Tamil girl from a prominent Christian family. Someone who had been selected by his beloved mother, someone who would […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/arranging-love/feed/ 0 Belonging https://www.thesmartset.com/belonging/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=belonging https://www.thesmartset.com/belonging/#respond Thu, 23 Mar 2023 11:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=59751 One evening when I was seven, my mother showed me and my brothers a large neon sign on the side of a high-rise in the heart of the bustling city of Calcutta. Against the dark outline of the building, a huge ceiling fan whirred, its blades outlined in neon. As I watched, the projection faded, replaced by the outline of a table-top sewing machine with the wheel on one end turning around as […]

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]]> https://www.thesmartset.com/belonging/feed/ 0 Love for my Son, Faith in the Science https://www.thesmartset.com/love-for-my-son-faith-in-the-science/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=love-for-my-son-faith-in-the-science https://www.thesmartset.com/love-for-my-son-faith-in-the-science/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:30:00 +0000 https://www.thesmartset.com/?p=59072 Soon after my son Benjamin was born, the chief neonatologist had to swear all the physicians and nurses in the intensive care unit to secrecy as they were about to commit a crime. I was forcing them to break the law and risk their professional credentials alongside my own unfathomable risk as we prepared for […]

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