Ram Advani ran a bookshop in Lucknow India for more than 60 years. For the past 20 of them, we were good friends.
How do you thank someone who's given you everything? Indian-American writer Deepak Singh says you don't do it by sending your mom a Mother's Day card.
India has been in the news recently for the way it treats its women and girls — and mostly not in a good way. But some women and girls are taking matter into their own hands, making sure they get the education to which they are entitled. Even when it means challenging the country's traditional way of doing things.
What happens when you travel back and forth between your home country and your adopted one? For Indian-American writer Deepak Singh, it means constant cultural re-adjustment.
For Indian-American writer Deepak Singh, Diwali in India was a time for getting new clothes, eating sweets and arguing with his father over Diwali lights.
Deepak Singh lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but he says train travel in the US just doesn't compare with the pleasure of taking the train in his home country, India. For one thing, there's the food.
People in India have had to adapt to the country's notoriously unreliable electricity. Deepak Singh is staying with his parents in Lucknow for the summer, where he has relearned how to live without the promise of sustained power.
Hindi and Urdu are similar when spoken. But they use different scripts-- and have been cultural and religious symbols.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants civil servants to communicate in Hindi. But when Indian-American writer Deepak Singh went home to India this summer, it seemed like everyone there wanted to speak English.
For Deepak Singh, going home to India for the summer means sweltering days and nights, with unreliable air-conditioning. But it also means mangoes.
Indian American writer Deepak Singh says it took moving to America for him to meet Indians from different parts of India.