Chapter 1
When We're All Dead, None of This Will Matter
In a world where personal essays often feel like performative vulnerability, Scaachi Koul's collection stands apart with its raw honesty and sharp humor. Her writing has garnered praise from celebrities like Mindy Kaling, who called it "hilarious and profound," and Roxane Gay, who described Koul as "a fearless writer with a voice that's fresh, wise, and unapologetically funny." As a BuzzFeed culture writer who rose to prominence through her incisive Twitter commentary, Koul brings her distinctive voice to this collection exploring the immigrant experience, body image, racism, and the particular challenges of being a brown woman in a white world. The book became an instant bestseller upon its 2017 release, striking a chord with readers navigating similar cultural tensions between traditional family expectations and modern Western life. Through her unflinching examination of everyday indignities and larger societal issues, Koul creates a work that's both deeply personal and universally resonant.
Chapter 2
The Inheritance of Fear
I've always been fascinated by the way fear transfers across generations, like some twisted inheritance tax we never signed up for. My parents' immigration story-moving from Kashmir to the frozen landscape of Southern Ontario-still feels impossibly brave to me. My father, smitten with my mother after seeing her at his cousin's house, proposed when she was eighteen, though her police sergeant father made them wait until she was twenty-two. After marrying and having my brother, my father moved to Canada, with his family joining him months later.
My father carries the trauma of his own father's sudden death from a heart attack. Now in his sixties with high blood pressure and cholesterol, he combats his genetic destiny with daily runs, yoga, and fenugreek seeds. My mother approached moving to "a country made of ice and casual racism" with remarkable nonchalance. She's always been fearless-taking me into deep water before I could swim, checking pan temperatures with her bare hand, approaching life with a boldness I still marvel at.
Yet despite my mother's innate courage, I developed intense fears as a child. I was convinced my visible veins were "vein cancer" and wrote my will on heart-shaped paper. Though I pushed boundaries as a teenager, I never inherited my mother's fearlessness. My boyfriend Hamhock, however, is made of "steel and grit," taking every dare without worry. On our Thailand trip, I faced all my fears-massive spiders, rickety boats, open water snorkeling-while he joyfully dove into every adventure.
Fear runs deep in our family, magnified by death. After my grandmother fell ill when I was twelve, my mother's trips to India became more frequent, returning each time more deflated. When both her parents died within eleven months of each other, Mom sank into fear, wanting everyone to stay home. My parents raised me in protective isolation-no walking to the convenience store alone, no sleepovers with just a friend's father present, hair always neatly pulled back.
I didn't fear flying until my mother started treating planes like doomed zeppelins, and water wasn't scary until she warned about arrogant swimmers being taken by waves. Now she panics about me crossing streets or catching the flu. When I went to Ecuador at twenty-two, my father sent a heartbreaking email questioning my choice, lamenting that no other child had done "this" and asking what he'd done to deserve such worry.
Now I call my parents daily, with my father always checking if I'm "okay" or "weak." Sometimes I want to collapse into him and beg to come home where we can watch over each other, as if our mutual vigilance might prevent death. Whatever comes, I want to stay where it's safe, as safe as I can possibly make it.
Chapter 3
The Transformative Myth of Perfect Clothing
Among the many unfair stereotypes about women is the belief that we all love shopping. I don't. Shopping reveals the worst in us-I'm ready to fight other women over size 10 dresses at sales, and changing rooms lead to existential crises. Despite hating shopping, I believe in clothing's transformative power. At our cores, we're all disgusting masses of bodily fluids, but maybe the right outfit can make someone think we're worthy of human connection. That's why we shop-to touch our humanity.
Around age ten, I gained significant weight and hid my developing body in sweatpants and heat-locking tops. I claimed my style was feminist protest, but really, I didn't know if I was allowed to look "cute" with my bigger body and darker skin. This changed when someone mistook me for a boy at my mother's Jenny Craig meeting. After discovering Orlando Bloom, I wanted to dress like a "hot girl" to attract boys.
My mother and I fought constantly over clothing choices. She preferred modest, sometimes ethnic clothing, while I wanted shirts with racy sayings. A particular battle erupted at Walmart over a blue shirt reading "IF IT WEREN'T FOR BOYS, I WOULDN'T EVEN GO TO SCHOOL." My mother refused, calling it inappropriate, and we settled on a glittery shirt saying "I'm not perfect, but I'm so close it scares me!" I was devastated when my nemesis Stephanie showed up wearing the shirt I'd wanted.
This pattern of believing an outfit could revolutionize my existence continued throughout my life. Years after working at a clothing chain, I returned as a customer and found what seemed like the perfect black-and-white wool skirt. I convinced myself this $24.99 sale item would transform me into a better, more confident woman whom others would envy. It fit beautifully in the changing room, but after showing it off, I returned to find myself sweating profusely, unable to unzip it despite fifteen minutes of desperate struggling.
The skirt incident escalated into a full-blown humiliation when three store employees tried to help me. After failed attempts with pins and shaking my hips, they decided to cut me out of the skirt. In the process, Aaliyah accidentally sliced through my underwear, leaving me exposed. I shuffled home in the heat with my underwear hanging by a thread, my labia rubbing against denim in a sweltering subway car. This experience reinforced what I already knew: no garment can improve who we are. The maxi-dress didn't cure my hip-hatred, the earrings didn't distract from my hairline, and no clothing made by "small, underpaid, foreign hands" can fix our insecurities. Clothes are ephemeral, but our self-doubts last a lifetime.
Chapter 4
The Complexities of Skin Color and Cultural Identity
When my five-year-old niece Raisin learned we were going to India for a wedding, she scrunched her face and said she didn't want to go because "everyone there is poor" and "Indians smell bad." This bothered me deeply, especially since she's half-Indian herself, though her fair skin, initially blue eyes, and light brown hair reflect more of her white heritage.
Growing up in predominantly white southwest Calgary, I pushed against my Indian identity while northeast Calgary was full of proud South Asian immigrants. I hid my gold jewelry and resented being asked where I was from. After 9/11, racism became more explicit-being called "Osama bin Laden's cousin" or even racial slurs that weren't even accurate for my ethnicity. I considered nose jobs to erase my most obvious ethnic marker and avoided the sun to prevent my skin from darkening.
When Raisin was born looking white with blue eyes, our family celebrated these features-the "typical shadism" that prizes lighter skin. Now in Jammu for my cousin Sweetu's wedding, I'm struck by how I'm considered "fair" here, occupying a privileged space as a Kashmiri. I notice the stark class and color divisions-dark-skinned workers clean our dishes and serve our food, while being treated with minimal courtesy.
The wedding itself is a study in tradition and gender expectations. Everyone obsesses over "aus-piss-ee-ous" timing and arrangements-a word pronounced in fragmented syllables that no one truly understands but everyone reveres. Sweetu, my actual blood cousin who shares my features, sits with traditional pre-wedding braids in her hair. Though her marriage is arranged, it's a modern version where she had some agency in the selection process.
I reflect on arranged marriages in our family-my cousin in Alberta had one, while my eldest cousin Angie married a white boy from high school, causing family turmoil. My parents would have loved to arrange my marriage too, but I refused, causing my father's face to flood with blood. In Jammu, I feel simultaneously privileged for my fair skin yet uncomfortable in my body that feels too large for Indian standards.
Chapter 5
The Weight of Beauty Standards Across Cultures
The seven-day Indian wedding requires different outfits for each event - from the mehendi ceremony's vibrant colors to the sangeet's sparkly glamour - but the clothes from my brother's decade-old wedding no longer fit my expanded body. Shopping in Delhi's crowded markets proves demoralizing; in boutiques where size tags mockingly label me XXL, shopkeepers exchange knowing glances and shake their heads at my frame, muttering in Hindi about "American size." My mother disputes my measurements with the stern certainty of someone who has internalized decades of cultural standards, claiming my bust size is "physically impossible" compared to hers, as if our bodies must conform to some hereditary blueprint.
Despite the oft-repeated assertion that "Indian women are naturally curvy," most women I encounter in urban India are rail thin, products of new-age gym culture and diet consciousness. Modern Indian beauty standards have evolved to mirror Western ideals while maintaining traditional preferences: fair skin (promoted by ubiquitous "fairness" creams), small waist (emphasized by sari blouse cuts), "doll tits" (as one boutique owner described the ideal), and long, straight hair (enhanced by chemical treatments). At 5'8" and size 12, I feel misplaced in this landscape-too tall for traditional outfits, too wide for contemporary styles, simply too much. My mother's warning about my form-fitting dress comes wrapped in familiar cultural anxiety: "It's not that I care, but everyone will talk" - the eternal chorus of community judgment.
The only part of me that receives unanimous approval are my hands, which aunties admire during pre-wedding rituals, complimenting my red-painted nails and gold rings - acceptable markers of feminine beauty. Through these interactions, I realize fitting in is a luxury rarely given to immigrants or their children; home becomes a shifting concept, always the last place you left, never quite where you are. At the wedding festivities, I'm struck by the stark double standards - while my father and brother wear casual Western clothes and eat freely from the endless buffets, women's bodies remain constantly under surveillance, from portion sizes to outfit choices.
On the actual wedding day, I witness the excruciating preparation of the bride, Sweetu - a process that begins at dawn. Her hair is slathered in coconut oil, meticulously parted without combs to avoid bad luck, braided with gold ribbons, and topped with multiple headdresses secured by safety pins literally stabbed into her skull until she breaks down crying. Hours earlier, she'd endured having the dejhoor (traditional Kashmiri gold pendants) threaded through fresh ear cartilage piercings while she wept silently, tradition demanding stoic acceptance. Meanwhile, the groom's preparation involved little more than a basic shave and shower. When he finally arrived - three hours late, as is customary - he was dressed in burgundy velvet and casually draped in flowers and money garlands. Despite feeling "strange and trapped" under the weight of her elaborate Kashmiri outfit, countless gold necklaces and the painful dejhoor, Sweetu looked undeniably beautiful as she prepared to enter her new life - another woman transformed and constrained by the physical demands of cultural beauty.
Chapter 6
The Rituals of Marriage and Friendship
I told Sweetu she looked beautiful in her wedding attire-multiple gold necklaces, pearls, rubies, black stones, red lips, and a bindi centered on her forehead. Despite feeling strange in her elaborate outfit, she was stunning. The wedding ceremony defied my expectations. Instead of everyone watching, Birdie informed me the ceremony would last until morning while guests ate, relaxed, and eventually went home.
By six in the morning, we began the farewell procession. Sweetu's goodbye to her mother was heartbreaking-they held each other in a world-stopping embrace that made me want to rip my heart out. Yet comically, Sweetu returned just seven hours later from her husband's home, transformed into "a real woman" with her hair restyled and proper gold dejhoor chains. Despite my uneasiness with arranged marriages, Sweetu and her husband shared intimate moments of genuine connection. Their comfortable silence amid the wedding chaos suggested their marriage was working.
This reminds me of other bonds in my life-particularly my friendship with Jeff and Matt "Baby" Braga during university. I didn't grow up with much alcohol at home, but university changed everything. Being a girl who could drink "like the boys" while staying composed became my badge of honor. Jeff was a rowdy, confident farm boy who threw the best parties, while Baby Braga was skinny and weaselly with bulging eyes. Despite initially hating them both, we formed an inseparable trio bound by alcohol and youth.
For over two years, our friendship revolved around drinking and resetting our lives each morning. But Jeff's drinking worsened-he lost weight, became forgetful, and sometimes threatened suicide from his rooftop. While Baby Braga and I remained functional, Jeff circulated through parties "like a ghost, too drunk to play and too sad to stop." As Jeff's behavior deteriorated, Baby Braga and I started having dinner instead of going to bars. The breaking point came when Jeff grabbed and shook me at a frat party, violating our friendship in a way I couldn't ignore. I threw away his alcohol and eventually cut him out completely on his twentieth birthday.
Our friend group dissolved after Jeff and I stopped speaking, with most people choosing his parties over my company. Baby Braga "came with me in the divorce," and we formed our own smaller world. Years later, I still missed Jeff sometimes but recognized that our alcohol-soaked friendship couldn't have lasted forever. Through it all, Baby Braga remained my constant, reminding me that today isn't yesterday.
Chapter 7
The Calculated Dangers of Being a Woman
Recently, after losing at an awards ceremony, I went out drinking with friends including Baby Braga and Jordan. As the night progressed and I became visibly drunk, two men at the bar began discussing me loudly-specifically how many more drinks I might need before one of them could "take me home." Though I tried explaining the situation to my friends, I wasn't making sense through my drunkenness. Instead, I begged them not to leave me alone for even a moment. We stayed together for the rest of the night, with my friend Danny eventually escorting me safely to my front door.
This surveillance of women is normalized-men watching what women drink, monitoring their behavior, and waiting for vulnerability. Rape isn't an accident; it's methodical. Men who assault drunk women aren't victims of "party culture"-they're calculating predators who deliberately target incapacitated women.
I've been roofied twice. The first time, at eighteen, a man with a French accent offered me water but drugged me instead. A female stranger rescued me when she found me collapsed in the bathroom and prevented my would-be assailant from taking me home. The second time involved a bartender drugging both me and my male friend. Now I'm cautious-I watch my drinks being made, never leave them unattended, and stay vigilant. The danger lies in how normalized this surveillance is, how women don't recognize trouble until it's too late.
This constant vigilance extends to how I present myself in the world. The thought of oral sex terrified me as a preteen-letting someone's face be that close to my vagina seemed unimaginable. This horror was just the beginning of my bodily anxieties, as I noticed how different I was from the white girls at school. My skin was darker, my arms thicker, with dark knuckles and ashy knees.
Puberty hit me fast and hard, bringing thick, dark hair all over my body by sixth grade-a unibrow forming, furry arms, and legs like wool leggings. My mother allowed facial waxing by twelve, which I insisted on doing during summer vacation to hide the process from classmates. While white girls had what teachers called "peach fuzz," I had what could only be described as a "prominent female moustache."
Chapter 8
The Politics of Body Hair and Cultural Belonging
Being hairy as a teenage girl felt worse than almost anything. In eighth grade, a boy named James pointed out my arm hair with revulsion. White girls didn't have sideburns or nose hairs like mine. While modern feminists like Lena Dunham and Miley Cyrus could rebelliously grow out their armpit hair as a statement, for brown women like me, body hair isn't just a choice-it's political. My thick, perfect head hair is admired and fetishized by white women, while the rest of my body hair marks me as other.
I maintain exhausting hair removal routines-daily armpit shaves, regular leg maintenance, facial hair management, and Brazilian waxes every five weeks. My first waxer, May, would chat about Palm Springs vacations while ripping hair from my most sensitive areas. Though some claim waxing isn't that painful or is necessary for sexuality, neither is true. I've learned to shave my knuckles without cutting myself, a skill perfected since that day in biology class when I first noticed my finger hair and felt horrified. The hair never stops coming back-a constant reminder of our pursuit of unattainable beauty standards.
This feeling of never quite belonging extends to my relationship with "home." I return to my childhood house, an unremarkable four-bedroom with a peach exterior that stands out in our suburban neighborhood. This house holds my life's memories-birthdays, tantrums, my niece Raisin saying "I love you" for the first time. Though I've moved away, it remains home, filled with reminders of my parents' other home in India: a Ganesh wall hanging, Kashmir photo books, black-and-white pictures of my grandparents.
My father follows his daily routine here: morning runs, soaked almonds for breakfast, hours in his leather armchair watching television or napping in the sun. It's easy to forget he once lived somewhere else entirely-a house in rural India that I only vaguely remember visiting when I was ten. That house, built by my grandfather in 1964, stands empty now, our family unable to fill its rooms anymore. Recently we visited it one last time before my uncle sells it, and I was struck by how different it looked from my childhood memories-smaller, greyer, with boarded windows and locked doors, nothing like the bright pink home with wide-open windows I remembered.
While my father contemplated keeping and renovating the property, my mother and I shared knowing glances-this was something he said every few months but never followed through on. What he missed wasn't the place itself but a version of life that no longer exists. Though my parents' Canadian home is objectively "better," moving meant losing pieces of what was-like carrying water in cupped hands from one river to another.
Chapter 9
Between Worlds: Love, Family, and Finding Home
My first real boyfriend and I would meet secretly in a park halfway between our homes. Our biggest similarity was also our biggest difference: I was raised in an Indian Hindu household, and he in a Pakistani Muslim one. We knew we weren't allowed to be dating in high school, especially not someone from a "warring region" and religion. We kept our relationship secret, meeting in a hidden park accessible through a puddled alley and small forest. When my mother discovered our relationship-claiming an aunty spotted us-she threatened to disown me if I didn't break it off. I pretended to comply but instead we became better liars. Eventually, we broke up before I left for university, acknowledging what we always knew: "It was never going to work."
Unlike that relationship built on mutual understanding of cultural restrictions, Hamhock-my white boyfriend thirteen years my senior-couldn't comprehend my hesitation to tell my family about him. He made me lobster dinners, held my hand on ferry rides, and even repainted a bathroom shelf I'd casually mentioned was chipping. He told me he loved me just two weeks into dating, from a porta-potty at a football game. While he immediately introduced me to his family, I kept him secret from mine for years, which he interpreted as shame rather than self-preservation.
When I finally told my parents, my mother threatened to never speak to me again, and my father said I'd give him a stroke. I initially lied that we'd broken up, but eventually confessed we were still together. After a year of planning, I brought Hamhock home during a friend's wedding. Despite my father's initial coldness, the visit went surprisingly well until Hamhock suggested we move in together, triggering my father's fury about living together before marriage.
Moving in with Hamhock became a test of both our relationship and my family ties. My father avoided acknowledging our living situation, while my mother gradually accepted it. We fought constantly in our half-finished apartment-about dishes, shoes, his magazine collection, and my cat. I sometimes deliberately provoked arguments, wondering if destroying our relationship might solve my impossible choice between father and boyfriend.
My father's response came more than a year after we moved in together-a devastating silent treatment lasting eleven weeks. When he finally resumed speaking to me, our conversations became shorter, more formal, with an undercurrent of disappointment. I miss the father I had before he knew the truth about me, even as I understand we're inextricably connected despite my rebellion and his darkness. I wait for him to fully accept my choices, believing he eventually will, returning to his peculiar but endearing way of seeing the world.
Through all these experiences-navigating cultural expectations, confronting beauty standards, building and losing relationships-I've learned that life exists in the messy middle ground between where we come from and where we're going. As my mother reassures me: "Everything turns out okay." And maybe that's the best we can hope for in this complicated world where we're all just trying to find our place.
