I’ve always been drawn to this belief in Vedic astrology that the sky, at the moment you were born, holds a kind of snapshot of who you could become one day. I don’t mean in the way how fortune-tellers can supposedly predict your future or Buzzfeed quizzes always claim to know what your soulmate’s zodiac sign is, but the way that suggests the stillness of that very same sky almost reflects an inner stillness within yourself. Sometimes I try to imagine what mine was like: the distinct sweltering heat of a Chennai morning right at the height of the summer months. I suppose I’m drawn to that imagined moment because it’s one thing that seems to make sense. Every part of my childhood existed at these intersections: of culture, continents, languages, and of faith. I grew up between Hinduism and Catholicism, between India and America, between worlds that looked contradictory from the outside but blended, almost seamlessly, inside my own home. 

The 4th house in astrology is the house of home, roots, and the people who first teach you what that safety feels like. In my chart, Pluto and Jupiter sit there together, as if they’re showing me that my sense of home would always carry this almost expansive feeling, that my foundation would never stay rooted to a single place, or maybe a single faith, but a house built from my overlapping worlds. 

I remember kneeling on the carpet of our prayer room with my Apoopa, the floor carving indents into my knees, my least favorite part. Surrounding me, the air is thick with the scent of jasmine oil and burning camphor, and the walls are lined with framed pictures of the gods, and small deities sit neatly on the shelves. Apoopa remembered each and every one of their stories, and I loved sitting with him, listening as the myths poured out like they were part of him. I used to watch him roll the beads of his japa mala between his fingers as he recited the mantras, each bead clicking softly, like a tiny heartbeat. He carried this steadiness that made the time feel different inside that room, almost slower and suspended. 

Next to the pictures of the gods, in the center lay a picture of the Virgin Mary, with angels hanging from chains and rosaries decorating the pooja. It’s really a collage of the different religions, threaded together in this beautiful way. To me, this was my normal, reflecting what so many other pooja rooms looked like back in home in India. 

But, when I was in grade school in Dover, NH, I was taught how different each religion is from each other and how Christianity was the “right” one making all others inherently wrong. One afternoon, I picked up a book from this dusty corner of the library, on the one shelf that had the books about other countries. I picked one up, it was titled “India.” I checked the book out, and brought it to my classroom and read it at pickup. As I read, I felt this pit in my stomach as it described Hindu temples as “crowded” and “noisy”, calling the deities “colorful statues” that people “worshiped as objects.” I remember tracing those sentences with my finger, and feeling my stomach churn, almost in humiliation that this was what my religion was brought down to. I walked up to my 2nd grade teacher, and tried to ask her why they did that. How could the author have depicted something so sacred to me in such a clownish way? She cut me off. “It’s wrong to worship any other god than Jesus,” she said. “That’s your choice, but that choice might send you to hell.”

The sharp wooden edge of the church pew digs into the back of my knees when I sit next to Mamma, who used to do so with my Ammamma. My legs could never reach the floor, so they dangled and swung, quietly bumping the pew in front of us if I wasn’t careful. I remember the distinct scent of St. Michael’s Church in Exeter, it’s one that’ll never leave me: the lemon floor cleaner, the melting wax, and the faint mustiness of the hymn books that’d been opened thousands of times before, interlaced with the familiar musk of elderly perfume. During the mass, sunlight streams in through the stained-glass windows, hitting Mamma’s silver bangle, with a verse on it, “Guardian angel, protect and guide, be always at my side”, scattering little sparks of light on her sweater. But most of all, I love watching her sing, her voice loud amidst the others. 

And then, there’s my Achamma, who, without any sort of confusion, blended both of these worlds as if they belonged to each other. She keeps her well-worn Bible next to the small pooja she has set up on the desk in her bedroom, with a statue of Krishna at its center. She typically hums mantras as she folds laundry, or sings a hymn in Malayalam without missing a beat. To her, faith wasn’t this contradiction, it was a house big enough to hold more than one language of devotion. 

Growing up with the three of them meant that faith wasn’t something I was told to follow. It was something I just followed in the small rituals of their everyday lives. It never felt like I was meant to choose between religions, but I always felt this pressure to do so, while instead I unknowingly absorbed both. The confusion haunted me.

As I grew older, the contradictions started to feel heavier. Vishu is the hindu festival celebrating the Malayalam New Year in Kerala, the state my family is from. Vishu mornings begin before sunrise. The house is dark, except for the soft glow from the nilavilakku, the brass lamp we light for every important pooja. Mamma arranges the Vishukkani, which is this elaborate table meant to be the first thing you see when you wake. The white cloth, yellow flowers adorning the edges of the table, shining coins and a wad of cash meant to symbolize prosperity, one of my textbooks to represent academic success, and every fruit and vegetable that could possibly ever exist, and some rice on the platter. The smell of konnapu, yellow flowers, mixes with the ripe fruits in the air, and everything is placed on the kani in this specific way.
After the kani, we do a small pooja. Achu, my dad, dips his finger into sandalwood paste, which is cool and faintly yellow, then presses it gently onto my forehead. It’s supposed to stay there all day as a mark of blessing and a sign of renewal, a way of carrying the morning’s sanctity with you long after the pooja has ended. My parents always emphasized that part. “Keep it on,” they’d say, smiling like it was the simplest thing in the world. 

That spring day in 7th grade on Vishu, a few hours later, my parents dropped me off at school, and as I watched their car drive away, I rubbed the sandalwood mark off with the back of my hand. The paste comes off easily, but today it leaves a faint smear on my skin and this sinking feeling in my stomach. I am confused about why I feel the need to wipe off the mark, but I just don’t want to answer any questions. 

I know now that I wasn’t rejecting the very idea of the ritual itself. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t ashamed of the festival per se. I love Vishu, the lamp, the colors, the quietness of the early morning, the careful trek down the stairs with Mamma covering my eyes to make sure the kani was the first thing I saw. But the mark felt like I had this giant bullseye on my forehead, a spotlight around the wrong crowd. I didn’t want questions I didn’t know, nor wanted to answer. I didn’t want to be the only kid at school with a yellow dot on her face. In a sense, I didn’t want to carry a symbol of my culture on my face when I barely knew how to reconcile it within myself.  Rubbing it off felt like I was betraying something, even though no one was watching. Yet keeping it on felt too… exposing. 

Up until I started at Exeter, I went to Christian school. That same day, on Vishu, we were studying the Book of John. My teacher asked us to go around and read a verse aloud, it was something we did almost every class, but when it came closer to my turn, I felt this tightness in my chest. I could feel the weight of the Bible in my hands, the embossed cross on the cover pressing lightly against my thumb, and I suddenly became hyperaware of the fact that I had been, just a few hours prior, at home watching my father light the nilavilakku, completely engrossed in one religion, with the smell of the incense still clinging to my hair. When my turn came, I read the verse, just as everyone else did. But as soon as those words left my mouth, a flicker of guilt rose in me. It wasn’t because I disagreed with what I was reading or because I didn’t believe the text. It was almost like I felt like a tiny part of me was stepping too far into a tradition that wasn’t fully mine, like by reading the scripture, I was somehow overshadowing and betraying the Hindu rituals I’d woken up to that morning. 

No one could see this guilt. Everything on the outside seemed normal, but inside it felt like I was being pulled from two different ropes, in a cruel game of tug of war, one leading to the Vishukani where the flame of the lamp still danced in my mind and the other planted firmly in that classroom. It wasn’t that I wanted to choose, it was more so that I didn’t know how to exist fully in both places at the same time.

Then there’s my 5th house, the house of creativity and expression, which for me, is ruled by Rahu and Chiron. That combination confirmed for me something I already knew deep down. My life unfolded in three languages, each one asking me to become a slightly different version of myself. 

There was the crisp, measured, English of class at school, the kind written in the thin pages of my Bible, with words like “behold” and “righteousness,” words that felt ancient and slightly too sharp in my mouth. There was Malayalam at home, rounder, warmer, full of soft consonants and expressions that didn’t translate neatly. These are the words my family spoke with such ease, that I always felt clumsy repeating, unable to shake the American accent I developed. And then there are the Sanskrit mantras Mamma taught me to recite, with syllables older than anything else in my life, older than I can even imagine, slipping through my mouth in rhythms I didn’t fully understand but felt connected to, almost by instinct. 

Each language carried its own atmosphere. Bible English belonged to fluorescent-lit classrooms, but also dimly lit church pews, uniformed students, and neatly lined desks. Malayalam lived in my home in NH, reminding me of sitting on the cold granite countertop while Achu cooks, in steaming cups of chai, in the clatter of steel plates, and in the specific softness of my family’s voices when we speak to one another. 

These languages were tied to places, people, and to the way the air felt at certain hours of the day. 

Mamma’s voice broke through the stillness of the early morning, soft but insistent. I still remember the day she taught me Saraswati Namastubhyam, a shloka that’s a type of prayer to Saraswati, the Hindu Goddess of knowledge and learning. I felt my mother’s weight next to me as she sat on my bed, and she said, “Diya, mole, repeat after me.”

“What time is it?” I’d asked in confusion. It was the first day Mamma was going to work early, which she’s done every morning since I was three years old. Her mornings always began at 5 AM, long before the world outside even woke up.

I repeated the prayer slowly, stumbling over the unfamiliar Sanskrit words, which felt like trying to pronounce a tricky tongue twister while still learning how to say “apple” in English. “No, Diya,” she said patiently, “you have to say it like this.” She smiled, hopeful, and even as a toddler, I could tell this meant a lot to her. Her face was lit up by the sun beginning to rise, the light peaking through the shades, shining on her curly hair, yet another thing we have in common. I tried to say the words again, but I had a hard time making the hard ‘r’ sounds, which didn’t exist in English. It was especially difficult trying to say these words without knowing their meaning. Mamma’s voice was calm but firm, and we went through the lines again and again until I got it just right. When I finally did, she smiled, kissed my forehead, and cracked her knuckles, which in Indian culture is symbolic of removing bad omens from one’s day. “Good,” she said. “Now Saraswati Devi will bless you with wisdom.”

Sanskrit existed solely in the stillness of those early mornings with Mamma, in the dim glow of oil lamps, in the echoes of the bells ringing through the temple in Kerala when I visited for the first time when I was 15. I only know Sanskrit through prayers: Saraswati Namastubhyam, the Gayatri mantra Achamma hums under her breath, fragments of Vishnu Sahasranamam playing over the temple speakers as I walk, barefoot across the cold stone floor (you’re not supposed to wear shoes or socks in the holy space of the temple).

I remember the first day we landed in Kochi, the humidity seeping into the plane the moment we landed. I could feel my hair starting to puff up, succumbing to the urge to revert back to its natural state. My parents were starting to plan our trip to Guruvayur Temple. My parents were ecstatic to take me there this trip. 

My American accent softened in India, but never disappeared. 

At home we speak only Malayalam. My father’s family does not speak English. They tell me I sound like a tenga, a coconut, because no matter how brown I look on the outside, I still sound white. 

My accent slips into my Malayalam at the worst moments, flattening syllables that were supposed to curve, clipping endings that were supposed to linger. Every time this happens, I feel this tiny jolt of embarrassment, as if my own voice was reminding me that I wasn’t fully Malayali, as I want to be. My Malayalam softens in the US in the opposite way, almost tentative, accented by hesitation. The pitch of my voice differed from when I read scripture aloud to when I repeated prayers at home. For me, languages weren’t just words; they were roles that I was constantly switching between. 

I didn’t realize how much of myself I was editing until I started noticing the gaps, moments when my thoughts stalled for a minute, trying to figure out which code to switch into. Whether or not it was acceptable to say “thank you” or “nanni”, Grandma, or “Ammamma”, “home”, or “veedu”. 

Sometimes, I worried that opening my mouth at all would expose how fractured my voice actually felt. At gatherings with our family friends, and phone calls to my family back in India, I’d rehearse simple sentences in my head before speaking, so my English vowels wouldn’t land so loudly in the middle of all that flowing Malayalam. I’d spent hours before bed practicing my lines, only to mess up, every single time, the “r” sound that I simply just cannot form. But through admission, of that feeling of not being enough of either, it was as though something inside me loosened, like I was unbuttoning this shirt that had been too tight for years. 

The 12th house, the house of your inner world, holds Saturn and Mars in my chart. It’s a strange combination of both discipline and intensity living there. The 12th house is supposed to be the place where you meet yourself without distraction, without performance, without the layers you put on for other people. In my life, that space showed up early in the places that couldn’t have been more different from each other. 

I felt that inner quiet during Christmas Mass at the Basilica in Washington, D.C. The cathedral was huge, larger than any church I’d ever been in, and my first time seeing the pews filled with people who looked like me,  but it didn’t feel overwhelming, so much as calm in a way I didn’t expect. The air was cool, the kind of cool that settles into the stone and just stays there. The choir’s voices rose and carried through the space, like they almost knew that the walls had heard them so many times before. A thin trail of incense drifted up near the altar, and by the time it’d reached us, it had softened to just a faint smog. I remember looking up at the ceiling, covered in these gold tiles that caught the light, and feeling this sense of peace, and quiet,  even though the surroundings were far from it.

When I was 15, we visited India for the first time since we came to America when I was a baby. In the final days of our trip, before returning on a flight back to Boston just in time for hell weeks, we were finally going to the Guruvayur Temple my parents had hyped up so much. We joined the line outside the temple, the ground warm under my feet. I remember the crush of the people around me, women in their saris, men in mundu, kids my age yelling in fast Malayalam that I had to concentrate deeply to follow. The smell of sandalwood, sweat, incense, and the mullapoo (jasmine flowers) that Mamma pinned in my curls surrounded me. Inside the inner courtyard, the bells were louder, constant, their sound layered over the priests’ chants. I watched some people press their foreheads to the ground in prayer, and some wore a cross around their necks while also having turmeric paste streaked across their foreheads. For the first time, I was in a place where almost everyone looked like me, spoke my mother tongue, moved through the rituals I’d only been able to see in the small prayer room in the corner of our home. And yet, as out of place I felt, my accent sticking out and my eyes lingering too long on everything and everyone, standing there in that crowd, hands pressed together, the bells ringing so loudly that I could feel them in my chest, I felt something settle in me.

And now, I find quiet in the mornings before school, Mamma long gone for work. In the prayer room in the corner of my dad’s office. My dad would be getting ready in the next room, and it’s my job to light the incense and candles. I watch the first bit of smoke curl upward in a small line before dispersing through the room, and I ring a bell continuously for a few moments. The smell is familiar, always a little sharp at first, but then warmer as it spreads through the room. The brass lamp next to the pictures on the wall flickers softly, the light touching Ganesha’s face in one frame and Mary in another. I used to stand there in my school uniform, half awake, watching the smoke rise, before I went to school, and would later study scripture. 

I guess nothing about either space was dramatic. One was filled with music and stained glass; the other was small and more personal, lit by a single lamp. But the feeling they created in me was surprisingly similar, a kind of inwardness, a moment where everything else faded a little. A feeling that wasn’t specific to either religion or either place, but to something in me. It was in those two very different moments, the cathedral that held hundreds of people and my home which held three (four if you include Charlie, my dog), that I began to understand what my 12th house really meant: that my inner world wasn’t tied to one tradition, one space, or one explanation. 

Alone in the corner of my dad’s office, there’s a window next to the pooja. If I look up while the incense burns, I can see the sky. Sometimes it’s the flat gray of a New Hampshire winter morning, sometimes the soft pink “princess sky” with cotton candy clouds I named as a kid, sometimes a pale, washed out blue before I leave for school. It’s a sky that doesn’t look anything like the one over Chennai the morning I was born, or the one over Guruvayur, or the gilded golden ceilings of the Basilica. But it’s still the same sky. 

I used to think, hope even, that my chart would explain something. Now I think it’s just a reminder that all these contradictions never lived in different worlds, but under that same sky which might be the thing that brings them all together. And maybe that’s where I stop searching for an answer.