Excerpt from Seeking Fortune Elsewhere by Sindya Bhanoo, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

After she tied my white hair into a loose bun, she stroked my head as if I were a child. Her own hair, long and braided, was speckled with white.

"It's a two-bedroom," she said. "So we can visit you."

She extended her trip by a week, so that she could move me into Malliga Homes.


Two years have passed and they have not visited. They were all supposed to be here this time next month—Kamala, my son-in-law, Arun, and my granddaughter, Veena. I prepared the bedroom for them as soon as Kamala told me the plan. I bought new sheets and an extra single bed. But just a few weeks ago, Kamala called to say she was coming alone. Arun is busy with work. Veena started a new job.

They would enjoy it here. It is like a resort. There are two swimming pools on the property, and a boy scoops out the leaves with his large net many times each day. The Veg and Non-Veg food is cooked in separate kitchens. We have tennis matches, movies in Tamil, Hindi, and English on the big screen in the lounge, yoga, a walking group, a bridge group, and a Hindu prayer group that meets at the small temple we built within the compound. There are smaller Muslim and Christian prayer groups that meet in residents' homes. Malliga Homes, as Kamala says, is "inclusive."

There is nothing wrong with Alpharetta, Georgia, where Kamala lives, but for all the space and privacy that America offers, it is a country that longs for life. You go for a drive and the road is endless. One fast food restaurant after another. Wendy's. McDonald's. Waffle House. The colored lights shine bright in the evenings, beckoning visitors. "Like temples," I used to say. The grocery store is three kilometers from their house. What sort of place is that? One where people are too busy driving to enjoy life, I suppose. Nobody has time to talk, and yet everyone is seeing a therapist.

"It is only a ten-minute drive to Starbucks," Kamala would say, when we visited. "Should we go?"

Ten minutes. I may as well plant a tree, pluck the beans myself, and grind my own coffee, I often said to my husband. He would gently put his palm over my hand and whisper, "Shush. She may hear you."

He spoiled her. The best school. The best tutors. The clothes she wanted. The books she liked. Let her go to the movies. Let her relax. No need to make her cook with you, he would say. Do not trouble her. Do not upset her. Let her be.

He was just as bored as I was in Alpharetta, even if he never said so. He, too, hated the burned taste of Starbucks, and how we went the whole day in America—the whole bloody day—without seeing a single person but the mailman, while Kamala and Arun went to work and Veena went to school. I always enjoyed living right in the heart of Chennai, with the noises of the street cluttering my day. Everything I needed was a stone's throw away.

"No point in living in the city in America," Kamala said, back when they bought the house. "Dirty, unsafe, no parking, bad schools." She said "America," but was she also talking about her childhood home? I could not help but wonder.

What do you do with a big, empty house, full of rooms that you do not need? She never talks about this, but somewhere inside of her she must feel it. She is my daughter after all. Her house, with its vaulted ceilings and skylights, it was no better than Malliga Homes.

At least she is in America. All those years ago, when her Georgia Tech admissions letter arrived, I said this to my husband.

"If she has to go, let it be there."


I dine with the Venugopals, the parents of Kamala's friend Padmini. Over his empty plate, as we wait to be served, Dr. Venugopal cannot stop talking about Mr. Swaminathan's death.

"For me, it is an intellectual curiosity," he says. He is a retired cardiologist. His wife, Lakshmi, fit and elegant, has gray hair but smooth skin, undoubtedly from years of sandalwood paste facials. We are in the Non-Veg dining hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Sharma are also with us. The Venugopals and the Sharmas always sit together. Only once before have I been invited to join them, when I first moved in. It was a sort of welcome and thank-you. When Kamala signed me up for Malliga Homes, the Venugopals received something called a "referral bonus," by way of a free out-of-station trip to Ooty.

From Seeking Fortune Elsewhere by Sindya Bhanoo. Used with permission of Catapult. Copyright © 2022 by Sindya Bhanoo.

This story was originally published in Granta magazine.