Born Fighting, Learning to Speak
If I have to talk about myself, I should start at the beginning. I was born impatient. Why do I say that? Because I came into this world about two months early. But life has been teaching me patience ever since. Being a premature baby in the early 1980s put my life at risk. My parents say I came out fighting through that stage, eager to start living. I thought surviving such a dramatic entrance would lead to an easy life. Life had other plans. When I was about three or four, I visited my grandmother's village in Kerala. There was a pond near her house—not a decorative garden pond, but a real village pond where people gathered to collect water for their nearby fields. I was playing near the edge when I slipped. I remember the cold water covering my head. The panic. The muffled sounds above the surface. The darkness. Time moved strangely—it felt like hours, but it was probably just seconds. My mom saw me go under a couple of times. She pulled me out just in time. When I came up gaspi...