Articles by Kate Clark

I am here to apologize to all the Indians, the Kannadigas I’ve met in the last three weeks. Immediately upon meeting you, you either spoke to me in English, with the assumption that of course I wouldn’t be familiar with your language. Or, you asked if I spoke Hindi, and when you learned I didn’t, you jumped right into English with no apparent judgement. India, I am grateful for your linguistic abilities and I am sorry for my linguistic limitations.   I studied French for several years, but I am only fluent in English. Meanwhile, every single person I’ve met…

I am here to apologize to all the Indians, the Kannadigas I’ve met in the last three weeks. Immediately upon meeting you, you either spoke to me in English, with the assumption that of course I wouldn’t be familiar with your language. Or, you asked if I spoke Hindi, and when you learned I didn’t, you jumped right into English with no apparent judgement. India, I am grateful for your linguistic abilities and I am sorry for my linguistic limitations.   I studied French for several years, but I am only fluent in English. Meanwhile, every single person I’ve met…

A night view of M G Road. Pic: Shree D N After finding out I would be coming to Bengaluru, an Indian city I knew just as the "Silicon Valley of India," having grown up in Seattle, I became fascinated with the idea of comparing my hometown to B'luru. The differences between these two cities, 8,000 miles/13,000 kilometers apart, are stark (food, geography, language, ethnicity, weather, traditions, you name it). Finding the similarities, I thought, would be more of a challenge. The questions I had in mind: do Bengalureans romanticise their pre-tech past as much as Seattleites do? Do they…

A night view of M G Road. Pic: Shree D N After finding out I would be coming to Bengaluru, an Indian city I knew just as the "Silicon Valley of India," having grown up in Seattle, I became fascinated with the idea of comparing my hometown to B'luru. The differences between these two cities, 8,000 miles/13,000 kilometers apart, are stark (food, geography, language, ethnicity, weather, traditions, you name it). Finding the similarities, I thought, would be more of a challenge. The questions I had in mind: do Bengalureans romanticise their pre-tech past as much as Seattleites do? Do they…