“Foreign romance. The end of the world. A murderous plant. An impossible heist, a burning building. Pygmalion, with a twist.”
Annika Inampudi ’21 is a poet and writer. She has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards twice for her prose pieces. Her self-published debut book, “Devotion,” is a collection of ten short stories written over the past few years. She describes it as a collection which “re-examines and re-imagined the central themes of her own life”, creating an intricate portrait of brown identity, womanhood, and more.
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AMERICAN BOY (Exerpt)
PART ONE: NAMES
I named my son after the sun because I never wanted him to forget his importance. It was him who we revolved around and it was him that I would come back to, forever and always. Sometimes he whines to me, saying that all his white friends make fun of him for having a girl’s name. He tells me his friends names and they feel like concrete in his soft mouth. Names like kitchen knives in my throat. Eric. Parker. Victor. My– Our language wasn’t made for names like that. I try to say “Victor” and it comes out all funny. Wick-torr. I named my son after the sun because I wanted him to remember that he was soft, that he comes from a country of tenderness. That he comes from a country of men who shirk violence, who take afternoon naps under the midday sun after a hearty meal instead, the ghost of ghee lining their sweaty lips.
My father refused to name me. I was a baby born quiet, doe-eyed and giving. He had not wanted a daughter, not during flood season. Money was sparse, and all daughters do is take it away. For most of the monsoon, he would not look at me. My mother named me after her mother, a stout woman with hair like ash and a face that would make a blind man sing. She took me home and taught me work before I could read. And three years later, when my brother was born, she took him to the Ganga and named him after the water. That year, it rained longer than it had before.
Surya brings a friend home from school and asks that I call him Steve instead. And I let him, because he is my only son and I want him to be free.