I grew up in rural Kentucky — brown, Indian, adopted into a white Christian family.

We didn’t talk much about where I was from. It was never a secret that I was adopted — everyone knew. But there also weren’t many words for what that meant, or how it felt. We just… carried on.

And some of it was beautiful. I had a loving family. I had friends. I rode my bike until dark every day with the neighborhood kids. I danced. I cheerleaded. I sang in the church choir three times a week. We lived in the country at first, then moved into the city — and even there, I was outside all the time, in movement, in nature, in motion.

There were moments of joy, but I always knew I didn’t quite belong.
I didn’t look like anyone around me. Not my family. Not my peers. There were only a few Indian families in my small town. When we’d see other Indian people in public — at a store or gas station — I’d feel a strange mix of curiosity and shame. Like maybe they were wondering why I was with a white family. Or maybe I was wondering it myself.

After 9/11, everything changed.
I was bullied in school. Called Osama’s daughter. Told to “go back to my country.” I’ll never forget how scared my aunt was — how she came over crying, worried for my safety.
I was a kid. But I wasn’t safe. I didn’t belong. And no one really knew what to do about it.

Representation was nonexistent.
The first time I saw myself was in an American Girl doll.
She looked like me — and I named her Shaley. I took her everywhere. I dressed her well. My mom made her outfits. That doll felt like a mirror, and it’s wild how healing that was — to simply be reflected.

But I had no connection to my own culture. I didn’t know the language, the food, the smell of my birthplace. I didn’t know anything about caste or Indian history. I didn’t even know what it meant to be Indian. I was just… brown. In a white town. With white parents. And a void I couldn’t explain.

I wish someone had taught me who I was.
I wish I’d grown up with the stories, the rituals, the connection. But even my parents didn’t know much about where I came from. I think they tried — maybe. But it never went very deep.

And over time, I buried the longing.
I tried to become who I thought I needed to be — to be loved, to be enough, to fit in.
But the ache never left.
And eventually, it would rise.

I came to India searching for my mother — and found myself in the ashes.

It began after a sound meditation in Mexico. I walked out of that space knowing something had shifted. There was a call I couldn’t ignore — not from my mind, but from somewhere deeper. I booked a one-way ticket.

It was my first time back since I’d been adopted as a baby. I didn’t know what I’d find. I just knew I had to go.

From the moment I landed, everything felt both familiar and foreign.
The smell of the air. The sounds of the street. The colors. The chaos.
I cried in temples I’d never seen before. I felt connected to a place I’d never known.
It didn’t make sense — but it also didn’t need to.

India held me like a mother and burned me like a fire.
I danced barefoot in ceremonies.
I lit oil lamps for the ancestors I never met.
I looked into the eyes of children who looked like me and wondered who I might’ve been.
I fell in love. I believed in magic. I trusted what I couldn’t explain.
I followed signs. I prayed. I searched.
And in the end, I was brought to my knees.

Because returning didn’t just open the door to healing —
It opened the door to truth.

And truth asks everything of you.

At first, I tried to make sense of it.

Tried to understand how a family that welcomed me in, fed me, cared for me — could turn so quickly. How someone who said he loved me could choose silence over truth. Caste over connection. Comfort over courage.

But there was no making sense of it.
Because this wasn’t just personal.
It was systemic. Generational. Woven into the fabric of the world he was raised in — the same world I had been separated from as a baby.

What happened cracked something open in me.

It forced me to look deeper — not just at caste, but at the ways we’re taught to abandon what we know is right in order to belong. At how much fear we live under. At how love is rarely just love in places like this. It’s tied to duty. Status. Obedience. Reputation.

And it made me ask:

Who gets to belong?
Who gets to be chosen?
Who gets to live freely, love openly, exist fully?

I thought I was returning to India for answers about my past.
But what I found were truths about the present — and a responsibility to do something with them.

This experience didn’t break me.
It woke me up.

To how casteism still infects every part of Indian society.
To how women, especially, are policed and limited by it.
To how love becomes collateral damage in a system built on hierarchy.

But also — to my strength. My clarity. My voice.

India didn’t just open my eyes.
It gave me direction.

I came back different — not in a surface way, but in a soul-deep way.
More grounded. More awake. More aware of what matters.

I knew I didn’t want to go back to designing for companies that didn’t reflect my values.
I didn’t want to live disconnected from my lineage.
I didn’t want to keep quiet about things that needed to be spoken out loud.

So I began creating from the truth of who I am — not who I thought I had to be.

I started Morè, my clothing brand — named after the surname I found in my adoption file. It’s built with local artisans in India using old-world techniques, natural materials, and small-batch production. It’s slow, minimal, rooted in story — not trends.

I started Manisha Stories, a nonprofit that helps children living below the poverty line in India get access to education. Kids who reminded me of the life I could’ve lived. Kids who called me Didi. I couldn’t forget them. I didn’t want to.

I started writing again — publicly, vulnerably — sharing my story through Substack, not to tie everything up in a neat bow, but to tell the truth. The messy, in-between kind. The kind people need to hear.

And I started teaching — yoga, sound, breath, and movement — because these are the practices that brought me back to my body and my faith when everything else fell apart. They’re how I healed. They’re how I show up now.

I’m not building fast.
I’m not building perfectly.
But I’m building something real.
Something that reflects the full complexity of who I am — and invites others to do the same.

I used to think I had to have it all figured out.
Now I know — the power is in the unfolding.

There’s still so much I don’t know.
So much I’m learning, questioning, healing, unlearning.
But I trust the path now, even when it’s uncertain.

I’m not chasing perfection.
I’m building slowly. Honestly. In alignment.
And I’m letting every piece of my story — even the painful ones — guide the way.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that truth creates change.
So I’ll keep telling the truth.
I’ll keep showing up.
And I’ll keep creating spaces — through clothing, through words, through sound, through community — for others to come home to themselves, too.

Because maybe that’s the real story.
Not just my return.
But the reminder that we all belong somewhere — and we all deserve to be whole.