This interview has been edited for clarity.
I went to NYU, but I was premed (laughs) like many other South Asian kids. I'm the child of immigrants. My Dad is a doctor and my mom is a dentist. But I also grew up during the food network generation. So like, you know, I'd come home from school and I would watch Giada and then go do my homework. As I got to college and being in New York City and just seeing the vibrancy of the food culture and how it was such a cool way into so many other cultures. For some reason I woke up one day with the idea in my head that I should be a food writer.
I'm Jain, which can be a difficult religion for people to sort of grasp. So the best way I always explained what Jainism was, was through the plate. That was always how I explained culture. It's sort of a way into almost every story. I don't think people realize just how connected food is to identity and politics and basically any subject in the world. I became obsessed with finding those stories. When you have a foot in one culture and a foot in another culture, I'm equally American as I am South Asian, even explaining the concepts to my parents about America came through food.
When you are the child of immigrants, and you're a generation removed from stuff, food is a connection.
And there's still so much left to say. In many ways it has been one of my biggest sources of complication and anger and sadness. And on the other hand, it has been something that gives me a lot of joy, a lot of understanding, a lot of compassion. That sounds kind of like weird and abstract to say, but when you grow up with people making fun of your lunch to then seeing those same people paying $10, $20 for that same food is a hilarious dichotomy.
Yeah, starting out, I didn't write about Indian stuff at all. Like I sort of in many ways refused to write about it because I was like, you know, I just want to be known as a food writer and not like Indian food writer. But then it just got to a point, a couple of years into it, where I was just really sick of seeing like, you know, particularly like white men sort of parachute into India and Indian culture and talk about how exotic and how spicy everything is. That is just not a fair representation of it. So if anyone, why should they be being paid to write about it? It should be me.
And there's so much to write about. We've barely touched the surface. And for now I kind of save it for my freelancing work because these, there's just things that are like so near and dear to my heart, so I can take time and focus on it.
Try to work at places that have unionized, I think unionization is such a big part of the industry now and it's a wonderful thing to see. It's helping to bring stability in the industry. I say this as someone who never went to journalism school and is not going to go get a masters in journalism, it's possible to become a real journalist by learning on the job. And the best way to do that is to try and meet as many people as possible.
Never have a scarcity mentality. There's room for all of us to thrive.
If that's just following writers and editors that you really admire on Twitter, engaging in conversation with them and then shooting them an email. Most editors are willing to take a chance on writers, but they do as long as pitches are awesome. I don't think people realize just how much a pitch reveals to an editor. It is your writing sample at the end of the day. Even if someone has like an awesome writing sample on their website but their pitch is chaotic, I will choose someone with the better pitch and fewer writing samples because it gives a lot of insight into how you work and how much you pay attention.
Also, you should never be afraid to write about South Asian culture. Also, sometimes I see some South Asians start to become competitive or feel competitive with each other. I don't think that's the way forward. I think we should all be championing each other. There is space for all of us.