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THE EXPERIENCE OF LOVE is what we seek in every expression of life. It is the inborn, evolutionary urge to merge that guides us to search for love in countless ways. We search everywhere; we explore every possible way to find it. We would give anything to get it; we are willing to lose everything to have it.

This insightful book by my daughter, Kamini Desai, is the lifelong culmination of years of study, practice, teaching, living and loving. She was born into a spiritual lineage and was exposed to the highest yogic teachings since her first breath. Growing up in an ashram, she was showered with the sacred ancient teachings passed down to me from my guru, and to him from his guru. Even though the teachings came from the highest, I was on my own spiritual journey and learning through living.

Kamini was on her own journey through her formative years. I attempted always to guide her with all the knowledge I had in the best possible way, but I was an amateur parent and replicated what I believed was proper parenthood from my Indian heritage. In retrospect, this prevented me from truly integrating what I was teaching. A clash of cultures created a conflict from which we both suffered. In retrospect, I would have managed my role differently as both a father and a guru.

Over time, Kamini learned from me and I from her. We are mirrors, showing each other what we each need to know — all that is beautiful and ugly, good and bad, sacred and profane. We have matured in our capacity to delve into the inner depth of our relationship. Much of the credit for our personal growth goes to Kamini and her ability to hold the space for me to work through the challenges we have faced. This is the process of spiritual growth accepting each other and ourselves with open hearts and unconditional love. Through our conscious interactions we have both evolved, growing closer, working together and respecting each other. I am so touched by her courage to reveal herself so honestly. Her conscious journey through loving relationships can serve as a guide to readers in their own process of self-discovery.

The secret of love is that the moment you demand love, it disappears and conflict appears. When you simply give, conflict disappears and love reappears. Love gives you back what you are willing to put into it.

At its highest, love is the most powerful force and an evolutionary journey. Love embraces life’s ups and downs, both the spiritual and mundane, providing openings to manifest its miracles.

In the beginning, love may appear to be crawling through a caterpillar stage. Even though it appears to build its own cocoon, it is not a trap but a transformative process that gives wings to the earthbound love. When grounded in purity and unconditional giving, love goes beyond all dreams and reveals reality.

Ultimately, intimate relationships represent the relationship you have with yourself. They demand nothing less than the death of the ego. Intimacy is a mirroring relationship, where everything that was invisible is made visible.

Instead of asking for love, be loving.

Instead of searching for peace, be peaceful

Instead of wanting to be loved, be loving.

Instead of waiting to be understood, be understanding.

Instead of looking for attention, be attentive.

Instead of seeking acceptance, be accepting.

Love is complete within itself. Love is not an exchange; it is unconditional giving. It does not wait for a return. Anything you expect in exchange turns it into a commodity in the marketplace. When you give fully from your heart, you are fulfilled in the giving.

The words of my beloved teacher, Bapuji, concisely summarize this great awareness of oneself: “The key that unlocks your heart is hidden in the heart of the other. Only when unconditional love creates an opening in the heart of another, will you find the key that unlocks your own heart.”

AS YOUNG WOMEN in the West, we live and breathe the romantic ideal of love. The unspoken given is that some day, just like Cinderella and her prince, we will be pulled out of the doldrums of our everyday existence and catapulted into a life of infinite and unending love where we will be loved and live in contentment, peace and happiness forever. We will bask in the sunshine of our beloved and through him we will feel whole. Reinforced through innumerable modern re-runs of fairytales–Harlequin romance novels, Love Boat episodes, and movies of Pretty Woman ilk, we fall victim to an ideal that makes our life appear as if it somehow does not measure up.

Fairytale love implies finding wholeness in, or through, another. It is based on an assumption that we can create an experience of completion through another that we do not possess ourselves. If we could stop looking at our lives through the promise of the fairytale, we might find we have gotten it backwards. We have always been in possession of our own completeness. It is only the assumption that “I don’t have it and you need to give it to me,” which has made us overlook the possibility for fulfillment that has always been present. In other words it is the belief in the fairytale itself, the idea that someone out there will “save me,” that keeps us from saving ourselves–from realizing we ourselves are the key to finding the completion we are searching for.

Romance is one of the most powerful ideals we hold as a society. It is all-pervading, filtering into every aspect of our lives from movies, to books, to pop culture and magazines. Once adopted, anything but that ideal appears lacking. This is why an enduring perception lingers in our society that people who are alone cannot possibly be happy–and those who are in a relationship must, by definition, be more so. It is why some women who are alone past a certain age feel they have “missed their window,” as if there is only a limited time to find a mate, and therefore happiness. Perhaps it is why the successful career woman who doesn’t want a relationship is looked upon with vague distrust. “How could she possibly be happy?” people ask.

The truth is, minus comparison to a romantic ideal, all of these could be perfectly satisfying states of being. Yet when we insist on a picture of romantic love as the pinnacle of achievement in the personal realm, everything else seems to pale in comparison. No matter how well our life may be working, or how fulfilling the other aspects of our life may be, the idea we should have something more makes what we have look like less. If we could let go of our romantic ideal of how it should be and let it be the way it is, we would automatically experience peace and contentment with the way things are right now–single, married, dating or divorced. None of it is an impediment to our happiness until we compare it to the ideal we have created in our own minds.

This phenomenon also extends to relationships we are already in. If we are currently in a relationship, but it is not measuring up to our idea of how it should be fulfilling us, it appears something is “wrong” with the relationship. We feel we have to do something to “fix” it. The truth is that, like all things, the way we interact with others will give rise to all kinds of experiences, some high and some low. This is just the natural order of things. But instead of allowing for the natural ups and downs that make up life, we compare those ups and downs to our picture of how it could or should be. It is through our comparison to that picture that we become unhappy and dissatisfied with what we have. In other words, most of the time nothing is wrong with our lives; everything is just fine. Just as waves have crests and valleys, so do our lives and our relationships. It is only by virtue of comparison to our ideal that what we have appears as a problem.

When circumstances, or our loved ones, don’t quite fit our picture we try to fix them, train them, and eventually if they really don’t cooperate, we get rid of them. In some cases that is a valid and necessary choice. However, for many of us there is another equally valuable option. We can learn to let go of our picture of how things should be. We can develop the skill of just being with things as they are. We can stop comparing and start appreciating.

As women, we may pick up other pictures as well. Perhaps it is the image of the ideal mother or wife, the picture of the career woman–smart and successful–creating her own independence and wealth. We decide that when we achieve this picture, when we’ve accomplished everything this picture stands for, we will have arrived–and then we will be happy. So we go about trying to fit ourselves, and our lives, into that picture. Once we manage to make it happen we tell ourselves we will be able to relax and enjoy.

Dutifully we study, and we excel. We work, we mother, and we care for our partners. We put in our dues and slowly become skilled in our chosen direction. But somehow the closer we come to that idealized picture, the further it seems to recede on the horizon. One piece falls into place and another falls out. We find ourselves in a constant state of juggling to get things to “fit” our picture. We get frustrated with ourselves and with others. We are willing to spend days, months and years of tying ourselves up in knots for that one moment when everything will fall into place. As a result, our life begins to feel like long periods of suffering, misery and stress, occasionally broken by those rare moments when everything is in its place. Only then do we feel we can relax.

Michael Singer, a modern sage, once pointed out that in case we have not caught on, life has no allegiance to our plans. It simply comes and goes. When conditions come together in certain ways, certain people, paired with certain circumstances, combined with timing–things happen. It is like a weather system that results from the coalescence of air pressure, temperature, wind direction and speed. Depending on how the factors come together, we get sun, rain, storms and clouds. They are not good or bad; they are simply the natural outcome of forces coming together in a certain way. Life is the same way. It simply unfolds according to the forces acting on it at any given moment. To expect the forces of nature to conform to our individual plan is foolhardy. And to rest our happiness on something that is by its nature mercurial, is even more so. It’s no wonder so many of us are anxious and worried! If we are completely dependent on the forces of nature to come together in such a way to fit our ideal of happiness, we should be worried. We should be anxious. We are in a precarious position. Our fulfillment seems to rest in the hands of fate–but only if we are depending on conditions to make us happy.

If we are reliant on external situations to make us happy, we can only be happy when they are present. If we have decided we will be happy when we lose twenty pounds, finally find that relationship, or get our partner to change, we are also implicitly saying we cannot be happy until these things happen. Suddenly, we are dependent on those things as the source of our happiness, and we have to go out and get them. We become a slave to circumstances.

The funny thing is, we are the ones who manufacture these requirements. Who decided if the scale says 125, we can be happy? And if it says 165 we can’t? We decide. Those are simply numbers. What we make of them is our own choice. We set the bar. If our partner learns to be financially responsible or more considerate, we can be happy. But if they don’t change, we can’t be happy.

So then, why do we do this? To motivate change. To get to the picture we think will make us happy, we have to be unhappy about the way things are now. We think we have to hate our bodies to get them more fit and healthy. We don’t trust that we can transform our bodies if we begin by loving them as they are. Once we get into the habit of creating through negating, we tend to do it with everything. We try to create relationships by being unhappy with not having one. We try to improve relationships by complaining about the way they are, or wishing they were different. This only perpetuates dissatisfaction in the name of the fulfillment we seek.

Recognizing we are actually the greatest agents of our own discontent is not something to be depressed about. It is, in fact, empowering. If we have gotten into the habit of rating our satisfaction by the presence or absence of externals, we can also choose to withdraw from the habit. We can stop deciding we’ll only be happy when our pictures are met. We can decide to be at peace with how things are now and if our goals happen to be realized.

That doesn’t mean we can’t make changes. The question is, can we make them from a place of willingness to accept that, for now, things are the way they are? Can we lose weight by first accepting and loving ourselves as we are now, and at the end when we reach our goal? Can we find fulfillment in our relationships as they are, and still make changes in the direction we want to go? This is a formula for creating a life that builds upon wholeness and satisfaction as its basis.

I grew up as the daughter of a Guru. I learned all the wisdom the ancients had to offer from the time I could walk. I became a teacher of life skills; communication, conflict resolution, team-building, stress management, wellness and work-life balance. I was good, and over time, I got better. Anyone looking at me would have thought I was “together.” I was a woman confidently charting the course of her own life. But I had a secret–I was still yearning for the “fairytale” picture, and the man who would fit perfectly into my carefully constructed life story. So no matter how great my successes, I always felt a tiny bit empty. I felt my story was not complete.

This “secret” became the source of my weakness. It was based upon an assumption that by comparison to this secret desire, my life was not good enough. In that comparison alone, my life felt incomplete–when in fact it was not so. I was also implicitly stating that someone else had the power to give me something I couldn’t give myself. That was how I ended up in relationships where I lost the essence of who I was so totally, I became a shell of the woman I was. I lost my power, my spark, everything that made me beautiful and strong. I gave it all up in the hopes of that secret conviction.

Though I rationally knew better, I unconsciously believed if I could find that perfect relationship, my life would be complete. I gave up everything, including myself, for that picture. And I did it not once, but twice. I was convinced if I could just change my life to fit my storybook picture, and get my partners to play the imaginary roles I had created for them, it would all be perfect.

My dream formula for happiness was simple. Be the right woman, and find the right man. He would give me unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, unconditional presence. But first, to be the “right” woman, I had to fit the ideal I had manufactured in my head. I had to deny who I was–because I certainly wasn’t perfect. To motivate myself to move towards this perfect image, I withheld love from myself until I could match it. Since that could never realistically happen for any length of time, I denied myself the things I wanted most; acceptance, love, contentment, and peace. I cut myself off from my own source–in the name of finding it from someone else.

This self-imposed separation from love only fueled my need to experience it through someone else. But not only had I effectively cut myself off from receiving my own love, I also cut myself off from anyone who might actually love me. After all, if I didn’t fit my own picture of how I should be, how could I be lovable to anyone else?

This set me up in a strange catch-22. When I finally received the love I so desperately wanted, I was unable to fully receive it because I was convinced I did not really deserve it. No matter how many compliments I received, how much I was told I was loved, some small corner in me believed I was still not good enough. I believed I didn’t deserve love because I couldn’t measure up to my own standards of lovability. In my search for becoming the image of the perfect person who was deserving of a perfect life, I undercut everything that could have given me just that.

Lest this start sounding cynical, let me say I am a romantic and an optimist at heart. I believe love is a powerful presence that has the potential to transform our lives. But the twists and turns of my life have led me to realize one thing.

Most of us think that people and experiences unfolding in certain specific ways are responsible for our experience of love. This creates dependency. But this dependency is an illusion. It is not that I don’t believe in love, I no longer believe dependency on another is the only way to experience it. In fact, love is something, that when understood, can be experienced anywhere, at any time. Like the sun that is always shining, love is always accessible. But we as human beings tend to close our windows when our conditions aren’t met and shut it out. It doesn’t mean it is not there, but simply that we have chosen not to be open to its presence. If we can increase our capacity to remain open under circumstances that would normally shut us down to love, we can experience more of it in our lives.

The possibility of love is not person-dependent. Single, married, dating, divorced, thick, thin, successful or failure; everyone possesses equal access to love. Love is an experience of being so totally fulfilled by a moment that all conflicts fade, all resistance dissolves. We merge into the moment so totally that nothing else matters. We enter a timeless state where the past falls away and dreaming about the future is unnecessary. When in love, the rest of our life doesn’t change, but it feels as if it has. We don’t just fall in love with a person; we fall in love with life. We are more open to every person we meet, every encounter we have. We are better able to flow with daily obstacles. This is because the experience of love happens within us. Sometimes another person is an agent of opening to life in that way. Sometimes it is an event, a great song or a stunning sunset.

The point is, we are the ones who decide if we experience love or not. And those decisions change from moment to moment. We can experience a loving, open-hearted feeling with someone one day and lose all memory of that love the next day when they’ve forgotten our birthday. The other person has not essentially changed. What has shifted is our choice to be open to the other person as they are. When we choose not to be open to the other as they are, we lose our love connection. This gives us a clue as to how and why we are always the masters of love in our lives.

The more we choose to remain open to our loved ones, partners, colleagues, and life events, the more love we will experience. Instead of relying on the other to create the circumstances that allow us to feel love, we decide to love outside of circumstance.

It is as simple as that. Another word for this is unconditional love, but I hesitate to use it because it has so many preconceived connotations. It does not mean we suppress our own needs and wants. It means we begin by allowing ourselves to be as we are with the needs we have, while allowing the other person to be who they are.

Like many of us, I didn’t realize I always had the love I was seeking. I was ignoring the very simple truth that I was capable of being fulfilled by what I already had and who I already was. I spent many years trying to achieve the “perfect me” with the “perfect man” when all I had to do was open my heart fully to myself and to my life, exactly as it was.

This book interweaves the stories of three relationships. The first two are accounts of my journeys through the two major romantic relationships of my life that finally led me back to my roots and eventually to the seed of the truest relationship–with myself. It is a fairytale in reverse. A story of a girl, who goes out to find her prince only to find that no matter how handsome, how perfect, and how much he loves her, he can never give her what she is ultimately looking for. Only after years of wishing and waiting did I recognize that I would never find what I wanted. Not because it wasn’t there, but because it wasn’t to be found where I was looking for it. Only then, did I come back to where the whole mis-”take” began. I “took” the other to be my source.

When I took myself back, I found love. I found wholeness. I found the fulfillment I was always searching for. My prince charming resides within me. I have the power to give myself security and love under all circumstances. The oneness, the merging I was seeking was within, and a part of me that was always there and never missing. It was me all along. I just never noticed it because I was so busy giving myself up so I could find something out there. This is the story of how I figured it out.

Even now as I write this, there is a certain feeling of shame. A rational knowledge that this shouldn’t have been the case. I should have known or recognized my own gifts without needing anyone to validate them. I shouldn’t have needed to spend years on the circuitous route of trying to find someone who would fulfill the simple task of urging me to be myself. I should have just done that from the very beginning. But I didn’t. I did it this way. And as much as others, and even myself, might argue it would have been smarter to do it differently, it is not the way I did it. I did it the way I did it, and I learned what I needed to as a result.

HAVING A GURU as a father, I was brought up as spiritual royalty. A princess of sorts, in a spiritual dynasty. One might think having access to spiritual truths from a young age would bring instant transcendence, leading to a perfectly painless life filled with peace and joy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I had to learn my lessons just like everyone else. Everyone does.

My father met his spiritual teacher, Bapuji, when he was 16 years old. From that time, he devoted himself to the teachings of that tradition. Over the years, he became one of Bapuji’s closest students and was eventually one of only four, chosen from thousands of followers, to carry his teachings of the ancient tradition of yoga to the world. These ancient traditions had been transferred to Bapuji from his own teacher through secret practices and teachings; the depth of which were personally revealed through time, and with experience.

Because these teachings were passed from the teacher to a chosen few disciples, it was known as a lineage. The basis of that lineage was simple. Regardless of our history, religion, or ethnicity, there are a few eternal truths that can help us live a life of greater ease, peace and happiness. We cause ourselves undue suffering when we are out of alignment with these basic life principles. These were the truths this tradition of yoga sought to share with the world, seeing the whole world as one family.

My father had an arranged marriage to my mother at the age of 22. At 5’ 11” he was tall for an Indian man, with strong features; a square jaw, high cheekbones and dark arresting eyes that flashed against his golden skin. His lean, fit physique was courtesy of the yoga he had learned from his teacher and his natural talent for sports of all kinds. For a time he’d even joined the Indian Air Force for the arduous physical training.

My mother was a diminutive 4 feet 11 inches. Her baby-soft skin, softly rounded cheeks, gently sloped nose and waving long black hair made the perfect foil of feminine beauty to my father’s striking masculine looks.

Being an art student, my father moved with my mother to a larger city near their hometown in India. There he taught at a Catholic school, in addition to private tutoring and any other jobs he could get. He had no car and would ride his bicycle to get around, my mom sitting on the back, elegantly wrapped in her sari.

My father’s dream was to come to America. It was all he had ever wanted and spoke about. Finally, after years of applying, he received a highly coveted scholarship and a student visa to go to the United States. Unable to borrow the money from his uncle, who told him he did not have a “travel line” upon reading his palm, my father promptly said he’d make his own line. He sold his watch, his bicycle and everything he had of worth to buy his plane ticket to America. He’d have about enough money in his pocket to last one week and the address of the friend of a friend where he might stay for a few days.

Going to his teacher Bapuji, he asked for his blessing. Bapuji gave him more. He told him it was his destiny to bring the teachings he had received to the West, and some day he would be considered one of the great pioneers of the authentic teachings of yoga in the West. Unsure he could make this happen my father nonetheless accepted his teacher at his word. Eventually the prophetic message faded from memory.

Lacking funds to pay for my mother’s ticket to the U.S. and unable to provide for the both of them, my father went to America on his own. He landed in Philadelphia. Only able to speak rudimentary English, he had gotten off at the wrong bus stop in the middle of winter and had walked the last 20 blocks to his address in sandals and a loose cotton shirt. He had never seen snow and could never have imagined the cold. No one from his town had ever been to the U.S. No one could tell him how to prepare or what to expect. Finally making it to the address of the one contact he had, he was shown to a simple room and promptly asked for rent. This would not be a free ride.

Going to school by day and finding a job as a cafeteria busboy by night, he lived as sparingly as he could, squeezing out only the smallest amount of toothpaste on his brush and saving slivers of soap. Any additional money he had he sent to his wife, who was now living with his mother.

Finally, my mother was able to come to the U.S. with my father’s brother, Shanti. The three of them began working; my mother taking care of the house and a young son, my father as a textile designer, and my uncle, Shanti as a chemist. Shanti married and eventually the two couples lived together.

On the side, my father, remembering the teachings he’d received, began conducting yoga classes. Shanti taught as well. With hard work the two of them built up a yoga society which trained 51 yoga teachers to help them lead 150 yoga classes a week in every YMCA, YWCA and community center in the Philadelphia area. In that time, around 1970, yoga was essentially unheard of. One hundred and fifty full classes a week was phenomenal. In this time another son was born, and a few years after, I was born.

In 1972, my father had a spiritual awakening that changed his understanding and perspective on yoga forever. His teacher, confirming his experience, told him to deepen his studies and his practice. When I was five years old, he decided to leave everything he had built and buy a place to retreat to in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, outside Philadelphia. But instead of having time to go into his own spiritual reflection, his students followed, and so began a yoga retreat center. At first it was four people, then 10, then 20 and continued to grow from there.

In the beginning when we moved to the yoga center, we all lived in a converted garage underneath the group common room. My father and mother had their own room. My brothers had bunk beds and I had a mattress on the floor; though often I would sleep with my mother instead. My brothers and I co-existed quite effortlessly. My clothes were kept under the sink in the bathroom for lack of space.

As the center grew, my mother was taking care of more and more responsibilities; rising at the crack of dawn to begin baking bread and preparing meals for the residents. My father was still doing some teaching in the surrounding area and my mother would roast nuts, make granola, and bag the extra homemade bread for sale at my father’s classes. When I was old enough my mother left me to my own devices on the property. I would occupy myself with any of the student residents who would play with me–on the swings, in the garden, with pretend tea parties. Each member of the community contributed to my education in a different way and I felt very free and safe among them.

At night we would all gather for an evening of chanting songs and yoga teaching. As a child this was ideal. Other kids and I would run around in the back of the room during the chanting, then would return to sit with our parents during the lecture portion. My father would guide the evenings, my mother off to his left on an area rug. I would sit there with my mother listening to everything my father said until my eyes would droop and my head would begin to nod. She would put my head in her lap and I would fall asleep to the sound of my father’s voice. One of the students would carry me downstairs and put me in bed every night after the evening session.

We had no T.V. until I was 11 years old. My entertainment was books, drawing, my imaginary world and playing in the woods. A resident student would tell me stories every night before the evening session. I would lie on a stack of unrolled bedrolls in the back of the common room and pretend I was the “princess and the pea” while he would recount the next episode in the continuing saga of the “fairy princess and her pearl necklace.” Every night I listened to the life principles my father was teaching. Once he asked me if I could understand what he was saying. I replied that of course I could. He was surprised.

Eventually, the center grew too large and expanded to another location in Pennsylvania. This center not only offered yoga programs, but holistic health education programs including conscious eating, detoxification programs, counseling, massage trainings, aerobic exercise and more. A health center featured massage, sauna, whirlpool and facials, the precursor to our modern-day spas. It was on the cutting-edge of what would become part of mainstream health maintenance thirty years later.

In the summer, parents would come and take programs while kids could participate in the children’s program, which included arts and crafts, hiking, hay rides, games and swimming. This was how I grew up. Even then I was treated differently. I could join the kids program, but I could come and go as I pleased. I was allowed to join the other “grown-up” programs as long as I participated fully and fulfilled all the class requirements. Having developed an early interest, I took my first massage training when I was fourteen years old. I was a kid, but not quite. I was the Guru’s daughter.

Through the years as the center had developed, my father’s reputation had grown. He had received the official title of “Yogacharya” from the equivalent of the Pope of India–known as a Shankaracharya. This allowed him to be called “yogi.” But a Guru is not a title you can receive. It is something that happens naturally as the result of how people see you. Then they may begin, of their own accord, to call you a Guru. In India, Guru simply means teacher. Literally, it means one who leads from darkness to light or “one who illuminates.” A guru can be an illuminator of anything, from art to dance to spirituality. They are a designated guide in a particular area of expertise. As my father began to teach from his own spiritual experience, he began to be regarded as a Guru for others on their own spiritual path.

Over the years the teachings were helping thousands of people. As programs became full and housing became tight, the center moved once again–this time to New England. I was fifteen when the center purchased an old monastery located on 250 prime acres in the heart of the New England countryside. Within a couple of years, ten thousand people per year were visiting the center. My father had come a long way from trying to scrape together enough money to buy a plane ticket and depending on the cafeteria where he worked as a busboy for food.

From being barely able to speak English, he had become an articulate and engaging orator. He became an advocate for personal introspection, looking at oneself as the source of one’s own happiness or misery. He helped thousands of people release old pains, blame, and resentment of the past and move on with happier and healthier lives.

With the ensuing gratitude came hero worship. And as is often the case, as soon as we give a label to someone, we start to see them in a certain light. We begin to perceive them through an image of who we think they must be, rather than who they really are. Not only was my father perceived that way, my whole family was. The sheer immensity of what the center had become and the resultant distance between staff, program participants and us only widened that gulf; making it easy for people to decide what we must be like. In the past, when the center had been smaller, this was less of an issue. The small size meant we all had personal interactions with everyone. Everyone knew each other’s faults, and took them as part of the package. Now size and distance made this less possible.

As the only daughter and the youngest, I was the little jewel in the crown. I was the little princess of a tiny little kingdom. People assumed we must be perfect; we must have the perfect family and only do “spiritual” things. They were shocked when I told them we watched TV or that my favorite food was pizza. How could this be? It didn’t fit with their image of who we were.

As is the case with any daughter of a famous person, I was famous by association. Everyone wanted to be my friend. In the beginning, I trusted everyone. That was how it had been as a child and I had no reason to assume it would be different now. I told them all about me, my family, and all the things happening in our private lives. I assumed since this person was my friend, it would be kept confidential. But I soon learned, though I liked to think people genuinely liked me, there was a certain caché in being my friend. That meant anything I had repeated to them was a commodity to be traded among friends and colleagues. The closer someone was to me, the higher up they would rise in their own peer group.

Of course, everything I shared got back to my parents. They would tell me to be careful about what I said and how I acted. People listened and talked. I couldn’t just freely be myself or I would get burned. I became very good at being the picture people wanted me to be. I learned to be gracious, but without showing all of who I was. I learned to listen and talk about myself without telling too much. I became a master at handling people without letting them come too close. But in the process, I had to shield a part of myself. I couldn’t allow that young, childlike, exuberant self to be seen. Subtly, I learned to withdraw into a shell of polite reserve.

My father warned me. He said, as much as people loved and respected us now, they could and probably would, hate us tomorrow. He admonished me not to rely on the love and adoration people showed to him, or to me, for my sense of self worth. It could disappear in an instant. I did not learn that lesson very well, but eventually I would.

As I became an adolescent, my relationship with my father changed as well. As a child we used to be close. During his morning yoga practice I would climb all over him and we would play. I would follow him around everywhere.

But even there, distance grew as he became busy and my teenage identity kicked in. My father’s own programming as an Indian dad began to take full effect. He wanted me to be a “good” Indian girl. That meant I could not go anywhere un-chaperoned, not even to the mall. I was not allowed to go to friends’ houses unaccompanied, or to dances with boys. I led a protected existence, effectively cut off from the rest of the world I saw going on around me. Even though I went to public school, I was not allowed to participate in anything beyond my classes. Having nothing else to do but study, I excelled.

My primary escape was through books. Books of all kinds. Mysteries. Stories of other places, other people. As I became older my taste began to gravitate towards the romance novel. My strange background, my ethnicity, and good grades practically guaranteed my lack of friends. I would walk the halls reading my book. I would cover the pain of standing alone for the bus or my solitary lunch with a book. Even if I felt alone and confined in my present life, I could read about something that had the power to lift me out of my existence. Love. Romance.

I began to believe there was something out there that could save me from feeling like this–empty and alone. I had learned from my upbringing I was the source of my own fulfillment, but I couldn’t see it. It sounded good, but it was not crystal clear to me exactly how it worked. What was crystal clear was how time after time, in story after story, people (like me) found happiness when they met a partner, and that partner loved them.

I would imagine most kids have some exposure to the reality of a romantic relationship through watching their parents. Though my parents had a deep affection for one another, there was none of the romantic interaction I would expect American families had. They’d had an arranged marriage. The only thing I knew about romantic love was what I had learned in romance novels and eventually on TV. Though part of me knew what I was seeing wasn’t entirely true, part of me was convinced it was a still a viable way to happiness. And that was what I wanted, to be happy.

Any Indian dad worth his salt would be an imposing father figure. My father had that plus the clout of his position. Even as his daughter, I saw him as my dad, but I also saw him as someone who was so well-respected, that to rebel against his edicts was almost unimaginable…but I did anyway.

Open defiance was not an option. So to his face, I showed him what I thought he wanted to see–the sweet, obedient Indian girl. But when my dad wasn’t around, I did what I wanted. I rebelled in my own quiet way. I believed my father wanted the perfect daughter. I believed he wouldn’t love me if I didn’t live up to that image. So, just as I did with the people at the yoga center, I became what he wanted. Only when it was safe to do so, would I let the real me come out. In a sense it was a double-life.

Thankfully, I had some help in my corner. Shila was my second mom. She helped my mother around the house and had taken to helping with the care of us kids. She was a nanny, a best friend and a mom all rolled into one. Shila was also my chaperone. She would cover for me and let me occasionally visit my one friend after school. She helped me join the cheerleading team, my big dream, for almost an entire season before I was caught and had to quit. I even talked her into chaperoning a high school dance so I could go. Never anything too crazy, but it did give me a feeling of my own autonomy in the world. My mom knew what I was up to, but turned a blind-eye. Though tradition meant she couldn’t openly go against my dad’s wishes, she could pretend she knew nothing.

When she could, she would intervene on my behalf. I begged her for three years to let me take dance classes. She in turn talked to my dad, putting my case forward, until he finally said yes. It was only in these little ways that I could express a part of myself that I couldn’t anywhere else in my life. I felt too confined and constrained by the role I was playing as a daughter and as the daughter of a Guru.

At school I was a nobody with almost no friends and no social life. I’d never had a date; I’d never kissed. I didn’t spend any time with boys and didn’t know how to act around them. I’d only slow-danced with one boy by the time I was sixteen years old. At home I was the princess, adored and cared for with many unusual opportunities and experiences, but also limited to that world. Only in small glimpses could I catch a look into the world outside my own.

THEN ONE DAY everything changed. I met someone who, through the glimpse he gave me of who I could be, woke me up. My entire being, my heart, came alive. Like a princess awakening from a deep sleep, I felt my savior had come to rescue me from the tower of my lonely existence. It was just like one of my favorite romance novels.