Do other dads not end their phone calls with existential despair? Because that's what my dad does. Papa ends most of his calls with me the way you might close a conversation with someone you want to menace. "Anyway," he'll say, "I'll be here. Staring into the abyss." Or, when I have given him good news, "The talented will rule and the rest will perish in the sea of mediocrity." Or, when I have given him bad news, "I am for everything that happens to you, as everything is my fault." He never ends with anything that couldn't one day be construed as a tragic yet comic last word.

— Scaachi Koul

Fear always reaches a breaking point and turns into anxiety or rage, and I don't have enough storage space for more fear in my life. Namely, when it involves people I've never even met.

— Scaachi Koul

If Indian weddings for Indian people are the furthest from “fun,” trips to India for Indian people are the furthest from “vacation.” When I told my friends about the upcoming trip, everyone purred about what a great time I’d have, told me to take a lot of photos, told me to eat everything. But if you’re going to India to see your family, you’re not going to relax, you’re not going to have a nice time. No, you’re going so you can touch the very last of your bloodline, to say hello to the new ones and goodbye to the older ones, since who knows when you’ll visit again. You are working.

— Scaachi Koul

I like being present in spaces where I am not welcome because you do not deserve to feel comfortable just because you're racist or sexist or small-minded.

— Scaachi Koul

I'm not white, no, but I'm just close enough that I could be, and just far enough that you know I'm not. I can check off a diversity of box for you and I don't make you nervous - at least not on the surface. Furthermore, I'm the whole package!

— Scaachi Koul

I peeled the shorts off my sweating skin and stepped into the skirt. It slid up my body, resting on my waist, and I pulled the zipper up towards the lord. It didn't just fit. No, it did more than that. It melded to my body, beautifully, as if it had been cut specifically for me, to mask and smooth and elevate. I would be better in this skirt. The dream was happening! I had the all-knowing smile, my hair was suddenly more luxurious, I felt thinner, more acceptable. Girls who had been mean to me in high school would see me in this skirt and think, "Is that Saatchi?" and I'd say, "YOU BET IT IS, YOU DUMB BITCH" and then punch all their boyfriends in the teeth. (I have not thought this fantasy through; just let me have this.)

— Scaachi Koul

Mom has reorganized the kitchen so that the one room that was everyone's room is foreign to me. My visits are punctuated with me whipping around, angrily demanding, "Where are the forks, WHY DID YOU MOVE THE FORKS?" and she has to calmly open the drawer on the other side of the kitchen as if she moved it just to ruin my life. I just found out where she puts the bowls and their new location feels like such a personal attack that I can barely talk about it without raising my blood pressure.

— Scaachi Koul

Mom talks about moving to Canada as though my father had requested she starts wearing fun hats. "Why not try it?" she thought, instead of "This fucking lunatic wants me to go to a country made of ice and casual racism.

— Scaachi Koul

She used to call me on the phone and scream, “I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, I AM GOING TO CHOP YOU INTO PIECES SO SMALL, YOU WILL BE A POWDER AND NO ONE WILL FIND YOU.

— Scaachi Koul

The mistake we make is in thinking rape isn’t premeditated, that it happens by accident somehow, that you’re drunk, and you run into a girl who’s also drunk and half-asleep on a bench, and you sidle up to her and things get out of hand, and before you know it, you’re being accused of something you’d never do. But men who rape are men who watch for the signs of who they believe they can rape. Rape culture isn’t a natural occurrence; it thrives thanks to the dedicated attention given to women in order to take away their security. Rapists exist on a spectrum, and maybe this attentive version is the most dangerous type: women are so used to being watched that we don’t notice when someone’s watching us for the worst reason imaginable. They have a plan long before we even get to the bar to order our first drink.

— Scaachi Koul