“THIS AMERICAN WOMAN” by Zarna Garg

When we visited India for the first time, I was a reluctant traveller. My husband was the one who was excited to see it. Once there, I was enchanted with the colours of the fabrics and with the tasty food. 

The most striking thing that I have seen in India was a woman who was breaking the sidewalk with a pickaxe while the man was painting pretty flowers on the wall next to that sidewalk. When I asked a native why the woman had the hard job, the man said that the profession of painting is only passed down from father to son. The daughter never gets to be taught something because when she gets married, she can teach her husband the trade!!! Then and there I decided that I was a lucky woman to be Romanian.

Zarna Garg is a stand up comedian whom I like very much. She is recognised for talking in her acts about her story as an emigrant in the USA and her American children.
“My kids can’t survive of the Wi-Fi goes down.”

In her memoir “This American Woman” she is candid about her childhood in Mumbai and her struggles to have a business in USA.
“In India, even the youngest girls were taught exactly what rape was and to fear it unless they covered every teeny-tiny bit of flesh, didn’t make eye contact, and didn’t smile in public or in private.
Anything and everything could be used as a pretext for assault by teachers, servants, family friends. 
She asked for it.”

Kindle, 2025