I often spent my young days in great fear of the kitchen. I was a strong-willed, hard-headed girl filled to the brim with hopes for success and prestige — much unlike my family’s array of more domesticated females. My mother, a petite, polished Indian-American woman, married at age 22 to live the life of a devoted homemaker. My two aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother had rather similar stories. I vowed — and knew — mine wouldn’t be.

Since as far back as I can remember, I flocked to the knowledge powerhouses — books, journals, newspapers, scholarly magazines — for the enlightenment that could convoy me straight to the dignified life I so desperately longed for. At age twelve, National Geographic and The New York Times ranked among my favorite secret indulgences. A year later, when my mother felt it was high time to introduce me to Good Housekeeping and Vogue, I was already smitten by The American Prospect.

It continuously amazed me, quite frankly, to hear how earnestly some women took to heart those childhood fairytales, stories filled with females vicariously experiencing any substance in life through their starry-eyed male counterparts. Where were the mentions of women making life their own, embarking on that indispensable journey of education to reconfigure their worlds? What type of message about life and ambitions were we relaying to our girls? Only poet June Jordan seemed to get it right when she so eloquently intoned, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

But such loftiness doesn’t resonate as deeply with the doctrinaires of half a world away, as I discovered on a fateful day during the summer of my eighth grade year, when my father’s long-lost childhood friend Ardev came to visit us. He had just arrived in America on vacation with his two nieces, Preety and Sundata, and my father welcomed them in our home profusely. Ardev’s first sign of bewilderment with me occurred when I did not immediately follow my mother into the kitchen to bring out the servings of chai, but rather I led the way to our sitting room, absorbed in Ardev's discussion about the recent social upheaval in his native village of Chandigarh, India.

          Ardev was doubly surprised when he learned that I took my education quite seriously, particularly that I planned on continuing it well past secondary school. That my parents had not yet lambasted this aspiration was, according to him, “even more bizarre,” and if they had consulted with him first I "would probably be spending [my] time salting choli and rajma beans at the bazaar.” He chuckled at his wordplay. My mother looked on uncomfortably for a few moments, rose, and coerced me into the kitchen to assist with the supper preparations. Needless to say, Preety and Sundata — being girls after all — followed suit.

          Our kitchen back then was located directly right of the sitting room, and the two were parted only by the kitchen's L-shaped countertop that ran along its edging. On that particular day, the monstrous mound of yet-to-be kneaded dough perturbed me. The sharp tikka masala smell wafting through the air was almost nauseous.

 Ardev, either not realizing that I, being in the kitchen, was still within earshot or simply not caring, remained sanctimoniously positioned on his wooden chair and remarked to my father, "An interesting daughter you’ve raised.” He took a sip of chai before continuing. “But you really must focus on teaching her to cook or where will she expect to go? She needs to be real woman to succeed."

Preety, who was beside me in the kitchen and finessing the bulk of the chapattis, tossed me a comforting smile. I watched as she carefully fingered the dough, creating spongy billows that would level out as a crispy layer upon frying. She was a most dexterous girl, sparkling and skilled — the latter meaning with more than just a skillet. What did she want to become? To do? Hoping for anything I could use to nudge her along a sounder course, I softly voiced such inquiries in the most cautious manner my thirteen-year-old self could muster.

 She blushed for a moment before meekly replying, “I think…I think I like to write. I don’t know if I’m good, and I haven’t had much instruction, but I’ve been keeping a little diary.”

 That was all I needed to hear. I beckoned her nearer and conveyed the chancy plan I had begun to formulate.

Her face lit up. “That would be neat, actually. Yes, yes that would. Maybe share my story, start that ripple of inspiration. Make them rethink.”

Near the dusk of the day, as we all stood on the porch bidding farewells and well wishes, I smiled at Preety and slowly, secretly slipped my New York Times Manual of Style and Usage into the folds of her mahogany-colored shawl. “Good luck,” I whispered as I watched her clutch it earnestly, and in that magical touch I saw before my eyes all the fragments of a dream-stunted girl fuse together into a radiant, resolute woman silently taking her destiny into her own hands. We’d be battling; we’d be bold; we wouldn’t mind their chaffs. No one but the Lord himself could take us off our paths.