‘Tis The Season: Authors Talk Holidays is a special seasonal feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which some of my favourite authors help me to celebrate the spirit of the season and spread a little holiday cheer. So, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle in by the fireside as they answer the question: “What does the holiday season mean to you?”
About Anuradha D. Rajurkar
Anuradha D. Rajurkar is the recipient of the national Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Emerging Voices Award for her contemporary YA novel, American Betiya (Knopf/Penguin Random House, March 9, 2021). Born and raised in the Chicago area to Indian immigrant parents, Anuradha earned two degrees from Northwestern University, and for years was a teacher by day, writer by night. When she’s not reading or crafting novels, you can find Anuradha exploring the shores of Lake Michigan with her family, obsessing over her latest garden or design project, cooking Indian food, or creating music with her son. Her sincere hope is that her stories inspire teens to embrace their unique identities despite outside pressures and expectations. Anuradha lives in the Midwest with her husband and two sons. Anuradha is represented by Alex Slater of Trident Media Group.
When I was a teen, I was obsessed with making collages. You know the kind, where you spend way too much time searching through old magazines, cutting out letters and images to spell out inside jokes, and gluing everything alongside photos on tagboard? It was the 80’s cheap version of scrapbooking, and I loved it.
As the holidays approached, my friends and I would spend hours leisurely assembling collages as gifts, our fingers sticky with the combination of Elmer’s and the candy canes we crunched, The Grinch or A Charlie Brown Christmas in the background. We’d break by improvising dances, lip-synching to songs like “Respect” or “Walking on Sunshine.” I was deemed a quintessential romantic teeny bopper for my enthusiasm, especially around the holidays, but I was cool with that: The holidays were about fun and magic, and I was there for all of it.
The weather turning cold meant more time with friends and family: from our South Asian family friends who lived all across the Chicagoland area, to the friends I met through school, who were either Jewish or Christian. My family would celebrate Diwali in the fall, and then, the following month and in a secular way, Christmas. We’d decorate our sweet, fake little Christmas tree, take the elevated train downtown Chicago to see the city twinkling in holiday lights, and, once, caroled with the neighbors. On Christmas morning, my sister and I would open a present or two, and, with It’s A Wonderful Life on television, my mom would prepare a feast that ranged anywhere from Lobster Thermador to Beef Stroganoff to an Indian vegetarian thali.
My parents were part of the early wave of non-European immigrants to the United States. They arrived in America in 1969 thanks to the newly established Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which was fought for by our Black brothers and sisters during the Civil Right Movement. Despite life in the U.S. being so new, my young parents managed to offer my sister and I a gourmet blend of cultures, free of bitter judgment or shame for taking to one tradition more than another. They presented the united belief that all traditions have elements of joy, light, and community, and we were invited to take part in and appreciate all of them.
Diwali, the South Asian holiday known as the Festival of Lights, represents the overcoming of good over evil, inner light over spiritual darkness, and for many South Asians, it’s as massive a celebration as Christmas is for Christians. I heard how in India, clay diyas light up clean, jasmine-infused homes, fireworks go off in the streets and on rooftop terraces, triumphant parades spill into the streets, doorsteps are decorated in colorful rangoli, and lavish meals are shared with friends and family. It’s a celebration rooted in Hindu mythology and spirituality. Though we’d visit India over many summers, only once had we been there during Diwali season, when I was five, so I’d never actually experienced Diwali this way. In the Midwest, Diwali meant time with our South Asian family friends: the teens would maybe perform a classical Indian song together on a stage at a jam-packed hall in a faraway suburb, or take part in a short puja in someone’s warm and cozy home after which we’d have a huge Indian potluck meal, giggling over our latest crushes. Diwali, like Christmas, was a different brand of fun, togetherness, and joy that I adored, and to me, felt more social than cultural.
The other day, I stumbled across an old collage in the form of a spiral bound book in the basement. It was a gift I made for my husband back when we were dating in college (yes, my passion for collages reached well into my university days), and it was complete with private jokes and swoony photos of us falling in love. Amid the flurry of raising our two kids and juggling our jobs and my writing, this book of collages reminded me of the ways I pieced together traditions as I grew up, left home, and tried to create new traditions still for my own little family. In the small Midwestern suburb where we now live, we attend Christmas cookie exchanges, seders, happy hours and block parties with our diverse group of neighbors. When they were little, we read our kids books about Diwali, and we still light diyas along our walkway and sparklers in the backyard with the South Asian friends we met when we moved here years ago. Flipping through that collage, I wondered if there is such thing as a singular culture. It struck me, the ways we’re part of something more textural and colorful, like the letters cut with care from magazines, letters that articulate all that’s personal, handmade, and unique about us individually, about us together.
I now write stories about teens finding their way across cultures, amid love and heartache, friends and family, dreams and betrayals. And here’s the hopeless romantic in me: I believe it all began with those collages. They tapped my creativity, helped me connect different traditions and people into a kind of beautiful mess that, at its core, is about connection, love, and yes, stories.
Teeny bopper or no, all that fun and magic meant something after all.
Title American Betiya
Author Anuradha D. Rajurkar
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Publication Date March 9th 2021 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Find It On Underlined ● Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
Fans of Sandhya Menon, Erika Sanchez, and Jandy Nelson will identify with this award-winning novel of a young artist’s forbidden, interracial first love, her close-knit Indian family, and her boyfriend’s desperate attempts to fit into it — even if it means betrayal.
Rani Kelkar has never lied to her parents, until she meets Oliver. The same qualities that draw her in — his tattoos, his charisma, his passion for art — make him her mother’s worst nightmare.
They begin a torrid, secret love affair, but when Oliver’s troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give. Just when their relationship is tested by a shocking betrayal, a family tragedy draws Rani to India for the summer. There, she gains perspective on what it means to be true to herself, and what that means for her and Oliver.
Winner of the national Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Emerging Voices Award, Anuradha Rajurkar takes an honest look at how cultural differences can transmute an interracial relationship into something unrecognizable as love. Rani’s journey will speak to anyone who’s ever had to fight to uphold their cultural identity — one stereotype at a time.
2 Responses
This is beautiful! Thank you for sharing! ❤️
Beautiful depiction of the holiday season, enhancing cultural diversity and appreciation of different religions foods and customs!! Loved you supporting your immigrant parents, acknowledging their desire to be true to their Indian culture yet wanting to blend into their new adoptive country!! Thanks for a piece beautifully written