My mother is named Barbara Williams. She is an African-American woman born in Valdosta, GA and raised in Detroit, Michigan. My father was named E.S. “Chandra” Chandrasekaran. He came from India as an international chemistry student. I never knew him because he left me and my mother when I was a baby. I don’t know any of my family from his side and I don’t have a clue of how to locate any relatives in India.

Apart from a phone call, photos and one letter exchange when I was in college, I have no memories of my father. A few years ago I learned through a random Google search that he’d recently passed away. Some of this history has found its way into my writing and is a strong element of my ongoing personal journey about identity, race and nationality.

Needless to say, India is a very, very loaded place for me – layered with all kinds of fears, trauma and pain. But I am leaning right into the vulnerability in an effort to better know myself, become more connected to my origins and culture, and develop into a more complete person. I am concentrating my trip in Southern India because although he was raised in Mumbai and lived there until he came to the U.S. as a graduate student, my father was Tamil, and this would be the region his family originated from.

I am a pretty big traveler. From a very early age, I had a major fascination with exploring the world. I grew up in New York City. When I was little, my dentist’s office was across the street from the United Nations. My reward for going to get my teeth cleaned was a visit to the UN. I was enthralled with the flags from unknown places and hungrily explored the gift shop. I studied the traditional dress on a collection of dolls made to represent cultures from countries around the world. I signed up for UNICEF newsletter and sent off penpal letters, hoping to make faraway friends.

I’ve been throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. I have lain down on icy roads to watch the Northern Lights, tracked lemur in the rainforest, danced in spectacular costume with carnival revelers, and have been welcome in countless villages, homes and assorted vehicles. But I actively avoided India. It was much too loaded – too raw of a prompt for examining my American-ness, other-ness, Indian-ness, Black-ness and fatherless-ness. I wasn’t ready to ask questions and was even less prepared to answer them.

The one time I readied myself for a trip to India, I backed down at the airport. Yes, at the airport – with my bags packed, my visa ready and a flight to board. There was a delay and a likely missed connection that would have thrown off my itinerary enough that I could cancel with no penalty, which I did. I went home, put my guidebook on the shelf and reprioritized other places. That was nearly ten years ago. Since then, I traveled and traveled and traveled with any energy and money I could muster but no India until tonight. Wish me luck.