My mother did her yelling in Gujarati. My father played leap frog between Urdu and broken English. We prayed in Arabic, and sinned in all of the above.

According to the handbook, saying no without good reason (love and mutual attraction don’t count) is like asking karma to come slap you in the face.

My grandmother explained that the English on my tongue, blue jeans, and refusal to oil my hair was an unhealthy distraction for the neighborhood gents.