Vibha's Website

The Boy with the Bunny Hat

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:04:36 -0800

Liam Conejo Ramos’s cheeks are chubby still. He is 5. His brow is knit in the slightest furrow, mouth turned ever so subtly down. His bunny (or is it an elephant?) hat with the long furry ears, the manga eyes, the long strings with bunny paws hanging from them. A beloved child – who looks awful, awful scared.

May the hat keep him toasty, I pray, wherever he is right now in ICE detention.

Someone who loves Liam must have bought this hat for him. They might have imagined his giggle as he tried it on, squealing at the droopy ears. They might have debated between a bunny hat, a cat hat, a puppy hat. Or maybe they took Liam with them to the store, and this is the one he picked out. Bunnies might be his favorite animals; he might have begged for a real one.

One day, when Liam is 9, 10, he will slick back his hair and try out a swagger (though secretly, at night, he will still sneak into mom and dad’s bed). One day he will throw the hat under his bed and let the dust bunnies play with their cousin.

But not yet.

The hat hugs him close.

A man standing behind Liam keeps a grip on his Spiderman backpack. The photographer didn’t care to include him in the picture. Liam can probably feel the weight of his hand. A black SUV stands in front of Liam. The boy is sandwiched between these two mountains, snow recently having fallen from above, collecting below.

His face is awash in fear, dread, a silent pleading. Had he been older, it might have registered outrage, frustration, disappointment, horror. It might read devastation at a dream destroyed.

I wonder: What did the man holding Liam by his backpack feel? Was this the apex of masculinity for him? The essence of patriotism?...Read More

Notes from Istanbul (Part 2)

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 08:26:57 -0700

A Language Lesson

The Bosphorus (rhymes with phosphorous – but comes from Greek for “cattle passage”) is a strait that divides that the European side of Istanbul from the Asian. We took a ferry across and sat wedged between local families. Now I like making random chit chat with random people but that day was having no luck – not even with eye contact. Everyone seemed to be studiously looking just past us.

Then a young boy and girl – the boy playing a simple tune on his accordion, the girl carrying a bucket for donations – kind of stole my heart. The girl, maybe 10, was beautiful, her hair light brown, her green eyes ringed with a dark border, her face delicate. After I deposited a few liras in her bucket, I asked her if I could take a picture. She looked taken aback and embarrassed as I clicked. I fumbled a “thank you” in Turkish. Her brother, who had come in front of me by then, slowed down to decipher what I was trying to say. He squinted skeptically as I repeated myself. And then he stopped his music to correct my pronunciation.

“Sağol,” he said.

“Saul?”

“Sağol!”

“Saauulll?”

As he moved on, he shook his head gave me an amused smile. A gift. This little interaction was not much. I don’t know why these two children find themselves begging on a ferry, where they go to school, if they go to school, who they are as a people, where they are geopolitically. I don’t know if their parents make them beg, and do they hate it or do they make it into a game. I don’t know anything. But still this small exchange let me skirt those questions and just make a human connection, however fleeting.

In our four days, we didn’t see anyone sleeping on the sidewalks. I saw one drunk person, that’s it. But inflation in Türkiye has been through the roof. Derya,...Read More

Notes from Istanbul (Part 1)

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 13:03:00 -0700

Istanbul was full of awe and awakenings, literally and metaphorically. A call to prayer wafted in through the hotel window at 6 AM. Good morning! Part Asia, part Europe, with a Middle East vibe, it felt like the perfect party buffet: a combination of new and familiar, progressive and traditional, playful and profound.

Amidst the sea of head scarves, a naughty sign outside a cafe: “Don’t touch my cookie.”

It's a place peopled with people who look like America’s minorities. Dark beards, hijabs, an occasional full-face niqab. To be here in their home where they are the regular folks, not “other” but ordinary people living ordinary lives, eking out a livelihood amidst skyrocketing inflation, making wraps and juice drinks for customers, selling knockoff purses at the bazaar, a young girl and her brother begging on the ferry, women and husbands pushing strollers. The tram crowded morning to night, humanity crushed together.

But different too.

Men in one neighborhood kneeling on prayer rugs on the sidewalk when the call to prayer rings out and then lingering there with fellow worshippers. Men walking arm in arm -- likely not romantically – making me wonder if this might be healthy for men in the West too. Roasted corn and chestnuts on sidewalk carts. Turkish Delight and mountains of spices everywhere – odd, I think, considering the food there is not spicy. But that’s probably my Indian bias.

And… we had been warned of this but couldn’t imagine the degree: Anjali and Nat, both 20, getting catcalled and ogled and propositioned (“Will you marry me”). Nat later told her mom on the phone, “Turns out they like short, curly-haired Jewish women. They don’t even know it. They wouldn’t marry me if they knew.”

She is right, of course. Our young friend's...Read More

Skunked!

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 13:03:41 -0700

My coffee smells like a skunk today. So do my hands, my laptop, my forearm. I can’t smell my own hair, but I’m sure it is skunky too. I’ve showered, shampooed my hair twice, run a soapy loofah over every inch of my body, laundered every stitch of clothing that came near the dog.

We let Olive off leash for the last stretch of our walk home last night. It’s fun watching her enjoy her freedom, and with our house only ten yards away, and it being well past our sleepy town’s bedtime, what could possibly go wrong? For the first 4 seconds she purposefully trots towards home, water, snack, bed.

But that fifth second brings down the house. She spots something in the dark shrub in our next-door neighbor’s front yard, and makes a hard right turn towards it. I think it a bit odd. Suddenly, she is laser focused. What could she possibly have seen that changed her raison d’être?

“Olive, what are you doing? Come back!” I’m trying to do my best stage whisper. I don’t want my voice echoing down the empty street, waking the neighbors.

“OLIVE!” She is running now.

“Olive, NO!”

She ignores me. Srini goes around, on our side of the short fence, so he can see where she is headed. He says he got a flash of something, before it darted away.

An angry, bossy bark, a mad kerfuffle, and then silence. The whole thing...Read More

India Tackles TB, Door by Door

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 13:01:02 -0700

As we grapple with the possible pandemic of the novel coronavirus, it might be a good time to look at another war that has been raging in many corners of the world, against an ancient infectious disease. Tuberculosis killed 1.5 million people worldwide in 2018, according to the World Health Organization, 410,000 of them in India. Containing it is monumental work, requiring both medical innovations and cultural insights. This is a story of how it is being tackled in Kangra District, a scenic valley in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas.

***

Every day, Sapna Kumari goes to the homes of six tuberculosis patients in Tripal, her village in the Indian Himalayas, to make sure they are taking their medicines. She calls ahead to remind them to eat something, as the drugs they are on should not be taken on an empty stomach. She encourages them to persist through the side effects — nausea, extreme fatigue, and dizziness — and not give up midway through the treatment.

The recent news that a vaccine against tuberculosis may be on the horizon is cause for optimism for the future, but for now, the footsoldiers in India’s war against TB tend to each affected patient one by one.

“It makes their stool turn red,” Kumari said. “I reassure them that’s okay.” She also doles out advice on folk...Read More

An Ode to My Beloved*

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 12:58:41 -0700

My favorite gift ever, the thing that meant so much more to me than the slick, Silicon Valley emblem it is generally taken for, is on its deathbed. The lump in my throat may surprise you, but not me.

My beloved MacBook Air, the now 6-year-old, lithe little machine, a one-time ballerina in a stadium full of football players, got sick recently. It seemed like gas – as if she had overeaten. Its belly developed a slight bulge, and the flap stopped closing all the way. I really thought this would just pass.

Then the base started to swell more prominently, and you could see the keyboard bulging upward. But everything still worked great. The thing still heated to the perfect lap-warming temperature – just like it always had. The battery drained at a determined clip, but recharged eventually. It connected to the internet only intermittently – as if it knew I needed help avoiding distractions. I loved it and it clearly loved me back.

Then one lovely afternoon – in that golden moment when the house was still and I was at no one’s beck and call, as I typed away my usual drivel, I heard a pop. I looked around. Nothing. But I knew I had heard something. I got up and walked around, inspecting the television, making sure the stove was off. As I approached my seat again, I noticed that a gap had appeared in the two plates that hide the guts of the computer. I lifted up the laptop and looked under. It was as if after a lasagna dinner, two of its shirt buttons had popped off. The remaining ones strained to hold the now-warring sides together.

Srini coaxed me...Read More

A Day at the Faire

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 12:45:37 -0700

San Mateo
May 2014

Just past the lost-child ID station, where Anjali the 8-year-old huffed indignantly at my suggestion that she could use an ID tag, past the fire-belching, scrap-metal Octobot, Myth Busters’ host Adam Savage stood on a rickety platform, with hundreds of fans adoring him.

“What’s the best thing you’ve ever made out of duct tape,” asked a young girl. A raft, he said. They went down some rapids in that raft, and he flew through the air at one point, completely confused about when he was supposed to put his legs straight out, when to fold them.

“Where did you go to college,” someone asked. “I pretended to go to NYU for 6 months.”

“What was your most memorable creation?” When he was 9 years old, he cut up some refrigerator boxes and put them in his mom’s closet, pretending he had created a space shuttle. He outfitted his shuttle with desks and sat in it for months.

“What was his biggest failure?”

His biggest failures have not been with technology, he said, but with people – hurting someone emotionally, or letting them down. Could he have thought of a more perfect answer? It might have been a practiced line, but he had me.

The best of Savage was not his inventions, but his humor, his humanity. As I wandered the exhibits of the Maker Faire,...Read More

Notes from Tokyo: Games with Geishas

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:27:19 -0800

Tokyo, Japan.

First, an apology: what follows may seem touristy and stinking of stale stereotypes. I know Japan is more modern and more stressed out than we are. The country is crawling with techno-geeks and littered with tall towers. But this is how I experienced one evening in Tokyo.

I had cabin fever and joined Srini towards the end of his business trip. On their last night, his company had planned a big event. A surprise event. All they told us was that we would be going to a ryotei, a traditional Japanese restaurant, to dine with geishas. That’s right, kimono wrapped, puffy-haired ladies sporting wooden flip-flops. Only they are too graceful to flip and flop.

I didn’t know what to expect. I knew they serve tea, walk around perfectly poised, balancing their bouffants, taking dainty steps in thong sandals and white socks. I thought I knew the geishas’ secret jobs, but couldn’t get any confirmation. But no one denied it either. Word was that they are entertainers. You know, like consorts or courtesans. I wondered how their delicate voices and demure manner would entertain the dozen of us loud Americans.

We enter the restaurant’s low hanging doorway, narrow, labyrinthian hallways, rooms beyond rooms – and finally a sparse room with a low table and cushions. We would be sitting on the floor. As we got closer, though, I notice they have allowed for knee issues: underneath the table hides a dugout where you can dangle your legs.

We take our seats. There is...Read More

iSurprise

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:22:19 -0700

Maya was about to turn 13, and for her pre-party, had launched a campaign to upgrade to a smart phone – an iphone 5C, to be exact. She had taped posters with the oh-so-subtle “iPhone 5C” in 124 point font on our bathroom mirrors, on the bedroom walls, on the stove backsplash, in our underwear drawers. Until now, she had a phone that allowed her to write texts, but it delivered them only when it was in the mood. It could take pictures, but refused to send them (yes, even with a data plan). Sometimes it just took a day off from work. It wasn’t all bad though – the thing was built like a brick, and the battery lasted forever.

We had been resisting the conversion, and had been vociferous about it. “Smart phones are a non-stop distraction,” we argued. “Just look at your mom. She is hooked. She is a poster child for distracted parenting. Why would we want to throw that kind of hurdle in your way?”

Maya couldn’t argue that, but could rightfully insist that her focus is better than mine, as is her self discipline. All her friends had one, some for years. She had heard my lectures about the dangers inherent in social networking, and could pretty much deliver the lessons from Digital Tat2.

But even as she outwardly made her case, I knew she teetered between hope and resignation. She knew that even if we gave in, it would take us weeks to get the phone, well past the big birthday hoorahs. She knows her parents are not only conservative, but lazy, and no way did she expect me to...Read More

Confessions of a Worry Wart

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 12:22:19 -0700

School’s out, the kids are at a sleep-away camp,* and I should be celebrating. Parents I know use the freedom to revel in tidier homes. They travel, they watch adult movies, maybe even finish their sentences. What do I do? I worry.

Maybe there are legions of closet worriers out there. Maybe we all are, to some degree, just pretending to be carefree, easygoing, and happy to be rid of our kids for a while. Maybe my preoccupations aren’t all that original at all. Or are they?

When a friend proposed a Girl Scout nature camp near Tahoe to me, I considered for a bit, assuming that this too shall pass. What was she talking about? We don’t pack our kids off to the woods on their own for a week! I know, I know, “a week is nothing,” you are thinking. You know people whose kids go off for the entire summer! Well, I know people whose kids go to boarding school for years. But we haven’t really had a primer for this.

Neither Srini nor I went to camp. The only “camping” we know is what I did with my parents – and my chachas and mamas and cousins. It was like an Indian wedding, only in the woods. While the neighboring campers roasted hot dogs on sticks, we feasted on chole, naan, and yogurt. We sang Hindi songs around the campfire and and told jokes in our broken Punjabi. Mummy packed our white linens to sleep on, and meticulously scrubbed everything when we got home.

Surely, this is not what the Girl Scout camp was going to be like. This would be one of those American camps you see in the movies, the “Hello mother, hello father” type. I had images of kids...Read More