Women in the Arena
Women in the Arena is the celebration of everyday women living extraordinary lives in plain sight. We seek to inspire, encourage and challenge you to reach for the great heights you're made for.
Women in the Arena
When your visa limits who you can become, resilience becomes your superpower with Varuni Sinha
What happens when your identity is stripped away by a visa system designed to make you dependent? This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of immigrant women who arrive in America as accomplished professionals only to discover they're legally prohibited from working.
Varuni Sinha, author of the groundbreaking memoir "Golden Handcuffs and Immigrants' Pursuit of Happiness," takes us on her harrowing journey from successful advertising executive and academic in India to a woman battling depression and alcoholism in New York City. As the first South Asian woman to write openly about the H4 visa experience, she exposes how immigration laws have silently devastated careers and mental health since 1990.
Her transformation began on the streets of New York, walking her dog through neighborhoods where strangers would inexplicably share their deepest secrets. These encounters—which she documented as "strangers on the street"—became her first step toward healing. The profound moment came when several men risked their lives to save her runaway dog from traffic, prompting her to reassess everything she'd been through as an immigrant.
Drawing inspiration from Richard Phillips, who maintained his humanity during 46 years of wrongful imprisonment by creating watercolor paintings, Varuni channeled her pain into creativity. Despite facing pregnancy loss and her mother-in-law's terminal illness during COVID, she completed her manuscript—a testament to resilience that readers from all backgrounds have found deeply relatable.
Varuni's message transcends the immigrant experience: we all have our own "golden handcuffs," situations that feel imprisoning but contain the seeds of our transformation. "We all fall down," she reminds us, "only to learn how to build ourselves back again, brick by brick." Her story isn't just about survival—it's about emerging from darkness with a more beautiful understanding of what it means to be human.
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week I have an incredibly brave and bold woman with me today.
Audra :Today, my guest is Veronique Sinha, and she is a New York City-based writer and multimedia producer. She has written for the Post and Courier Time Out New York and created 360-degree campaigns for global brands such as Yamaha and Panasonic. She just recently released her book entitled Golden Handcuffs and Immigrants' Pursuit of Happiness, just this June. It is her story. It is her story of change and heartbreak, triumph and despair, but ultimately it is her message of hope to all of you. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Varuni Varuni. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Varuni :Thank you, Audra. I'm so happy to be here today.
Audra :I'm very excited to have you with me today. You have such a remarkable story not one that I have ever heard, at least not told from your point of view be heard more often, because it's not just unique, but it's one that is universal and easily understood. As I said in your intro, it is all these feelings of the human condition, and you had them all in a very short period of time. So tell us a little bit about your remarkable story.
Varuni :So I would like to say that this is the first time a South Asian woman has written a memoir talking about something that South Asian women have endured since 1990 in America, and they have been too scared to talk about it. Because as immigrants you tend to question what you can say, what you can't say and how you come across to the external world. What you can say, what you can't say, and how you come across to the external world. Because in just the process of becoming the so-called other in another country, you do lose your voice sometimes. My story is a story of women who came to this country. It's a beautiful country, trust me.
Varuni :Very I have had an experience which I can only describe as a spiritual journey, so to say, because I came from a very um, entitled background. I am the so-called elite in india, because I do belong to the traditional upper caste, and when I came to america I became the margins. I taught these things, I taught about race and politics through literature when I was an academic in India, but I lived that experience of what it's like to be on the margins when I came to America to understand only one thing that many women like me who had come before to this country, even though they were legal immigrants, they did not, on the spousal visa that they came on, have the legal right to work. Many of these women, they were as talented, as skilled and educated as the men that they married, and it's not like anyone was trying to fool them. It's just that they were not aware of all the nitty-gritties of the law. Even their husbands, in some cases early on, did not know or understand, because they're also going into the unknown, so to say, to pursue their career. The other reason why these women did not speak up or write about it as much was because in South Asian milieu, you're supposed to be extremely supportive to your husband, to your children. You're supposed to be very supportive, even as a sister, to your husband, to your children. You're supposed to be very supportive even as a sister. So from a very young age you are tutored in so many ways to be the kind, silent, sacrificing entity which is then celebrated in our culture as that. Look at this beautiful woman. Because she lost all her voice, because she had no needs right.
Varuni :So when these women, they came here and they realized that, even though they themselves were doctors or they themselves were journalists or writers or artists or anything. All they could do when they came here was just stay on the spousal visa as a wife and just take care of wifely duties, which, if you think about it in the 21st century, it just doesn't make sense to just be the mother without anything else to do, especially if that decision is forced upon you, if you don't have a choice. So when they came in 1990, they were not even allowed to have an independent social security number. They were not allowed to, without their husband's permission, be allowed to open a bank account or, without their husband's permission, even get a driver's license. That, in its very framework, is very problematic. I should point out, however, that in 2015, which was two years after I came to america I came in 2013 there was a rule, a change in the in the law which was brought about which allowed some of these spouses not the entire crew, and this group is at least half a million women, if not more some of these women, a small portion if their husbands had fulfilled certain steps in the green card application process, then they would have what is called the employment card, but because for so many years, they had completely lost on their careers.
Varuni :Right, so if you're sitting at home for 10 years or 15 years, or if you're constantly you know told that, hey, sitting at home for 10 years or 15 years, or if you're constantly told that, hey, sit at home and take care of the kids or have kids because you have no other option, you just become like a walking talking corpse.
Varuni :In that situation, you lose your ability to even find a job, even if you were in your own country. So, in a foreign land, how would you find the strength or the resilience within you to get out there into a very aggressive market? Because finding a job is not easy. It's definitely not easy for an average American, right, and we're not just talking about a job, job, we're talking about thriving careers, right. So they were forced to become housewives. And that is what my book is about. It's about what I endured throughout these 10 years that I've been. I've been here for now 10 years a decade, and it's that entire journey, which I take my readers through, of having lost my identity, my purpose and complete meaning, so to say, and then how I pulled myself out of that despair into light.
Audra :What you're saying is that you came here, followed your husband, on an H-1B visa. Yes, and this is what was first put into action in 1990. Yes, and this is to bring others from other countries for specialties doctors, engineers, programmers, from, from whatever there is around the world so the us could have these remarkable specialties from all around the globe. And so these gentlemen and these could be women as well that had spouses that they didn't want to leave behind could come in an H-1B visa. But in most cases they were men bringing their wives across. And in your case, your husband is a physician, yeah, and you are, or you were a an executive yeah, you were an advertising executives, a very good one in India, yes, so your initial plan was to come over on a student visa, yes, and you thought, well, I'll just be a student, I'll be an academic, I'll just keep improving myself and keep learning, honing my craft, and then eventually exchange this visa for something different. Yes, that didn't exactly happen the way you planned.
Varuni :Yeah.
Varuni :What happened that that plan changed. So in 1990, there was the National Immigration Act which allowed high-skilled immigrants, like you said, the physicians, it professionals and even NASA scientists and things like that. So all of these people, they were imported by America to build all of these industries. Prior to that, in the year 1950, in the 1950s, there was an edge category which insisted and they were mostly temporary workers. There was an edge category which insisted and they were mostly temporary workers, and these temporary workers were there was a huge wave of South Asians who came in. This was actually followed by the wave of high-skilled immigrants, like my husband, who came, who were allowed to come in to build all of these industries which America really needed to expand. And what we see in the Silicon Valley today, or what we see in terms of the reach of the healthcare system, was built on the backs of these highly intelligent people who could not be temporary workers anymore because the nature of the job has to be longer than three years. So when the age class or the temporary workers were brought in, there was a clear. There were lots of limitations which would not allow their family members to come in, so they could not bring in their spouses or they could not even bring in their children. So in 1990, that changes a little and it is framed as a family reunification visa when the H4 is introduced. So the way it's talked about is in a sort of a positive way and that's how the H4, the spousal visa, gets instated.
Varuni :When I came in, my husband and I we had been dating for close to about two to three years. He comes from a very different world. I was an academic in India after having worked in advertising for a while, and he knew that these circumstances existed. He didn't know that the law was going to change. So he was very scared that if he brought me over and we fell in love and we were both very intelligent human beings and I think that's what made us very likable to each other. So to say, it was the intelligence. We're kind of like sapiosexual, you can say. And um, he was like, if you come in, you won't be able to work, and I couldn't understand what he was really saying and I thought he was trying to kind of, um, you know, like you know how guys they try to like push the marriage question to let's do it next year, kind of a thing. So I thought he wasn't that sure, but that wasn't really the. He was very worried that I would lose my career and my identity.
Varuni :So when I came in, as soon as I was in Detroit that's where he was in the beginning he told me to go on a separate track as a student and to try to do what I wanted to do, which is I was always very happy as a writer in advertising, even though I had switched to academia.
Varuni :It was mostly to impress my father, who's an academic, so he said you should do what gives you happiness, and by the time I was only a couple of weeks in, I was trying to get into the best journalism schools that America has to offer, and I did get into one of the finest ones, which is in upstate New York, and I did not know that, once I come out, the law will change.
Varuni :It just happened that, as soon as I graduated, 2015 had happened and this slight change in the rule was taking place, and my husband had applied for the green card, though he was still many, many years behind, and so, therefore, I automatically had that option of being able to work, but since I had already gone in on an independent track, I basically needed to find a place to sponsor my visa, independent of whatever he was doing, and I think that enabled me to work for some good publishing houses, like I did work for Time Out New York.
Varuni :I also got the opportunity to work for the Guggenheim Museum. I worked for other newspapers, which was facilitated by Newhouse, which is the school that I went to, so I had a great start to my career. However, things started to change as soon as it was time of elections, like what we're experiencing in America right now, where suddenly there's this sort of suspicion around immigrants, where they're seen as individuals who might be taking away American jobs. It was that climate that I found myself in when I unfortunately lost my job because I was doing well but perhaps I was doing too well in the publishing house where I was able to land a job.
Audra :So what happened after you lost your job. You had to do something quickly, because if you were being sponsored to stay in the country, that sponsorship is attached to that employer. Yes, so if that employer is no longer in place, your sponsorship isn't there either in place.
Varuni :Your sponsorship isn't there either. Absolutely, you're right. So what happened was when I started working in the publishing house. That in itself was very challenging because the way I was used to writing in India, we write and express ourselves in British English. So when I had come to America, I had to learn to switch it to American English, which sounds very strange because there too is just English, but it's a very different way of communicating. And because I had a very strong foundation in advertising, which is very simple, direct communication and an economy of words, I was able to do really well.
Varuni :I just didn't know how to read the politics of an office, because that's what happens when you're an immigrant. You can work really hard, almost with blinkers on, and you're like I'm going to put in all these hours, I'm going to work maybe 10 times harder than my employee, I'm going to be way more, I'm going to be way more serious about even landing a job or an opportunity than my classmates, and that's how I had landed opportunities way before my classmates. I think I just didn't know how to kind of interact. When you're that competitive or when you're that focused on just doing well, you can create an environment where people in the same sort of corporate space can get threatened, right? I didn't know how to play that and that was kind of like. Somewhere along the line I was gaslighted and I was basically made to look like I was incompetent and, unfortunately, in spite of getting a bonus, in spite of doing well, I got played into the politics and lost my job in circumstances which were very unfair and lost my job in circumstances which were very unfair. So when I did get fired, I also lost my confidence because that's the first job that I first real job that I had in another country, right.
Varuni :So when you get kicked out, you know, you just lose all sense of self because you're like, I'm not even good enough for this. And it wasn't like a very high paying job, it was a small publishing house where I was just one of the you know assistant editors. So when you lose something as simple as that, you kind of lose your voice as a writer. And I was on a visa which was like a ticking time bomb in terms terms of I only had close to about six months now, because I was six months in and I only had six more months to try and find an opportunity. Um, but it becomes very difficult because, no matter how hard you try within the art and publishing industry, even for a regular american who belongs to mainstream America, it's very tough to land a gig, you know. But if they see that though your paperwork clearly shows that you will not, that they don't know what's going to happen after six months, right? So how will they employ you? Mostly, the question you would get asked is what do we do after this date? Or even if you were to join, say, another publishing house and they do sponsor you on a separate H1B or something like that, that only happens to people who are in these high demand sort of fields, like medicine, like tech. It rarely happens to people who are artists and writers. So that's unfortunately how it functions in terms of the job market. So I was up against that tide.
Varuni :I started fielding applications right away, even while I was still in that publishing house, and was able to convince my CEO that please give me some time to figure this out, otherwise I will literally have to leave my family. You know I would have to go back, and if I go back, we'll have to figure out how I come back, and it could be very complicated. Which visa. Will I come on? Will I come back on the spousal or will I have to apply to another? You know, will I have to try and come back as a student to another university?
Varuni :It was way more complicated, but what started off was 200 applications, which went into 300 applications, and then a lot of the interviews that took place were also in person. I was trying to network and my resume was very solid. It wasn't a flimsy resume. I had demonstrated enough work to kind of, you know, convince anyone who needed that kind of writing that I had published in newspapers in America. I had written for this publishing house and for the bigger magazines as well. So it was just that the question that constantly was asked to me was not about my skill set, it was more about the visa, it was more about the, it was more about the. You know what would keep me employable? So to say um, and so it starts off with one year, then two years, then three years, and then I finally give up because I break down and I'm unable to even step outside um and go for anything at all, because my identity was my work.
Varuni :And with my husband mostly in the hospital, it's not like he's, he's there even on a regular day like today. He leaves very early in the morning, he comes back very late and he's at least for three weeks he's on call right. So it's a very isolating experience, not only for for me for all of these women. Their partners are usually in jobs which keep them completely occupied and, unlike me, I still have skills as a writer and an artist who can do something constructive or creative with her time right. Many of these women they needed that stipulated structure of going to a hospital or working in a lab as a scientist. If they don't have that opportunity, what will these women do? The mind turns, the brain turns on itself and you just fall into absolute depression. So what really happened was a very deep-seated depression is what I started sliding into, and before I knew it I was in that dark place.
Audra :And at this time you were in New York, yes, and you did a very unique thing in your darkness, yeah, which was not a fun place to be, and it created strife marital strife between you and your husband.
Varuni :Yeah.
Audra :And to the point where he said we need to figure this out.
Varuni :Yeah.
Audra :And he gave you space, a lot of space, and he did something pretty brilliant that I thought about after you and I spoke and I thought this was really smart of him Before he left to give you space so you could find yourself back to yourself again. He got you a dog. Yeah, and in New York, that needs to be walked. There's no yards in New York. Yeah, you have to go and you have to go outside and walk these dogs.
Varuni :Yeah.
Audra :So you had to go out and walk your dog, probably several times a day.
Varuni :Yeah.
Audra :Tell us about the journey that you took, as you were walking your dog in the streets of New York.
Varuni :Yeah, I did not know that depression can be so destructive is what I want to start off with, because not only did I turn against my husband, I became a completely like. I looked different, I was full of anger, I was full of a lot of resentment and even jealousy towards my husband, full of a lot of resentment and even jealousy towards my husband. So I turned into a complete monster within three to four years. I want to only highlight this because and I will talk about also the fact that every day, which actually started off with a lot of hope and resilience, even in this dark time of having lost a job, because people will think, okay, yeah, she's been. People do get unemployed for a year or two years, but then they figure out something right. But you can only figure out a track if the track is available to you. You cannot figure out a track if, every time you step outside, the door is shut on you. So then the track is completely, completely.
Varuni :That option of rebuilding your life is not, was not available to me because the stigma associated with my visa was so strong. It was literally like if I would get through an interview eventually, when we would start doing the paperwork and things like that. Suddenly person would get spooked and then they wouldn't return my call or, if any opportunities were even available, I had to just agree to work for free. Now, that is complicated, right. So it is because of that situation of feeling absolutely cornered that after two, I think two years or two and a half years, I just started drinking every day. So I would wait for my husband to leave and then I would just start drinking, and by the time he would come home, I was this raging monster who was waiting to just have an argument with him, which would always end with blaming him for the whole situation, right, blaming him for the fact that he got me here, the fact that he's a doctor, the fact that he was still trying to solve my problems. He was still trying to say, hey, how about doing something else? Maybe you can switch tracks to something technical? And I would shoot that idea down because I was like, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to now go back to school again? Because I had worked as an academic, I had been in media, so I've gone to school multiple times. Right, I hold four masters. I was on my way to finishing off my PhD. I taught at the university, so for me, I had already rebuilt myself in a way as a journalist right in America. So when he would suggest these things, I'm like are you trying to make fun of me in terms of so now I go back to school and what? Do you want me to be a nurse? Do you want me to be in tech? But what is the point of even doing that if in the end, something else happens and they use that immigrant status against me and that's what happens.
Varuni :The person who was trying to problem solve because he was trying to problem solve and no matter what he would suggest to me, I would shoot it down and instead I would humiliate him, and I can see that clearly now. And because of that it created a huge problem where a doctor is coming back after 14 hours of hard work. All he needs is sleep. At the very least. He just needs sleep right, not even like food on the table.
Varuni :That was absolute hell that I put my husband through, and this is also reflective of certain dynamics which I have seen play out in other marriages of these women, and these conversations that I am privy to are because of many groups that are found on social media, where this visa, the immigrant visa, has been described as the depression visa, and I'm part of all these groups on Reddit, on Facebook, where many of the members they share what they go through on a daily basis, anonymously, as anonymous members. So I see what their brain is going through, how the brain has turned against them, and this is why, at one point, my husband told me that we need space. If we don't have that space, then there will be no way that we will be able to solve this, and so he decided to just step away. He said he wasn't like leaving me, so to say, but he said he needs to go away to Los Angeles and that's where he's going to be, where he was able to get another job, and he felt that something was going on with me in terms of some sort of a experiment of sorts which I was doing on the streets of New York, and he thought there was something about New York which will help me. At the very least, he thought that I can solve my problem on my own. He cannot help me with it, and I think that's a very evolved point of view, because, if you think about it, we cannot really fix anybody else. We can only fix ourselves.
Varuni :He knew that if he just let me be, I will be forced to deal with my own demons. Right, and it's not that he was. He was just abandoning me. He said that you can live in New York, the rent's taken care of. He was giving me money, he said if I wanted to do as many courses and try and figure this out, there was money for that. And he got me a dog, a Goldador, which is a golden retriever in a lab. He even trained the dog to make sure that he can take care of me as a therapy dog.
Varuni :And then he left us and went away to Los Angeles. He would keep checking on me, but I think it's extremely brave of him to do that because, given my condition, if you met me back then, I did not even comb my hair or take a bath on most days I looked like a lunatic. I was very. It was like if I was living on the streets is what you would think I was. You know, it was that kind of a existence. And then, because he gave me, because he did not want to solve my problem, he didn't want to put the band-aid I was forced to deal with my demons on my own. So my husband goes away. I'm left in this fancy apartment with a dog and, yes, I have to step outside and have to walk this dog because I didn't want to be at home. It was absolutely scary to be indoors. Plus Mowgli, my dog, is an extremely active dog, so if I did stay with him, he would like start chewing like he would start chewing my boots or the furniture and things like that. So there was an actual practical problem which I needed to solve in terms of taking him out.
Varuni :And, yes, I start walking outside on the streets and then randomly and this had started before Mowgli came in as well I would whenever I would go outside and I was considering some of the things which he was talking about, which is taking on courses, so I had started doing some evening classes at continuing education programs and things like that, and when I would step outside, even generally for a walk, there was something strange in terms of how people had started approaching me and talking to me randomly on the streets, which I could not explain very clearly. But it only took place during those two to three years that I hit that depression and my husband was away and after that it did not happen. Prior to that it did not happen. And these people would walk up to me. They would start a conversation which could be as bizarre as what do you do, oh, where are you from, and things like that, and then they would start sharing intimate details about their own personal life, you know. So somebody is talking about what's going on with their wife.
Varuni :Once there was a person who got really emotional because he looked at my dog and he was like your dog looks exactly like my Roger and I lost my Roger because somebody got into my house and stole my dog. And then he explained how, you know, the person got in, took his dog, you know, put him in a bag and escaped, and the police were never able to track that robber. There was this other guy who talked about how he lost all his weight just by smelling his shit. So he would say he would smell his shit to figure out what he was putting into his body, right? So there were these bizarre stories and I'm like, well, why are people talking to me? It was almost like I felt there was this sort of like weird portal of thoughts that had opened up and I was like a psychic, who's you know got these powers to make people talk. But essentially it would happen on a very frequent basis, almost every day, where I would meet someone strange and they would open their hearts to me and I would come back home and I would write these stories down, which I started recording in my diary as strangers on the street. So it's very different from what humans of New York did on a much larger scale.
Varuni :He went out and he was actually trying to create a platform For me.
Varuni :I think I felt that these whispers from the street were kind of healing me, were slowly taking away my pain, because what started off was I was completely isolated and shut off in this sort of chamber of pain and trauma because of my inability to work, to find expression for myself as an intelligent human being, right.
Varuni :And then the isolation was broken by these people who were just coming and talking to me and slowly I start observing that these people are showing me a mirror. They're showing me that in either sides there are just human beings, and so while the election and the politics and all that craziness was playing on in the media around me, I was able to see that the regular human being on the streets of America is full of love, is full of basic humanity, right, full of the same doubts, highs and lows. The heartbreak as I am, we're both the same. We could be different races, we could speak differently, but we're essentially the same and we are being pulled apart by these media houses, by these politicians, by anyone who is trying to profit off of the basic needs that human beings have, right, and we're being played as pawns against each other, and that is what allowed me to change my perspective.
Audra :You tell a story. You told me a story and we spoke before about the kindness of strangers book before about the kindness of strangers. Yeah, and it was this amazing story about. It was surrounding your dog and how your dog on one of these excursions that you were out walking your dog, how you got distracted because you were upset and your dog got loose and the kindness of strangers once again stepped in and rescued. Tell us a little bit about this miraculous event.
Varuni :Yes, during that time, my husband and I we were living in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy Brooklyn is where a lot of African-Americans live and on that day, george Floyd had happened and it was impacting the community in a very significant way and I think I could feel it. I could feel the tension in the air and it also impacts you as an immigrant, because you're like, if people here, people who are born here, they are experiencing something like this, what could happen to you? Right, my dog? I had found some sort of healing and because of that, I had also started talking to a lot of homeless people and got into social work. So I had started working for an institution called the Bowery Mission, which is an institution that works for the homeless, but they wanted me to come and teach art and creative writing for their kids and that had, on top of the experiences on the streets that had further allowed me to heal and, you know, open up my heart. But that day, all the fear and the trauma that I had experienced when my husband, you know, had decided to go away and leave me alone, that fear came back again and I was completely full of this sort of like, this negative spiral where I was like I can't do this anymore. This is just not possible. I can't live here and I'm talking to my husband on the phone and I'm so distracted that my dog, his leash and his entire harness it came off. So now he has nothing on his body. Harness it came off, so now he has nothing on his body. And we're on.
Varuni :We're right next to a traffic intersection, which is one of the major intersections in Bed-Stuy, and when that happens to a dog they become very disoriented and they will just run, so they will mimic whatever you're doing. So I was frantic and I started like screaming. And I was screaming, I was like can someone please, can someone please save my dog? And because of that energy, my dog didn't know what to do. First he started running around me and then he ran straight towards traffic which is coming towards him. So he's bolting straight towards traffic and all I can do is scream. I'm not even articulate. There were these four to five guys who were watching this happen from the sidewalk and, without caring for their lives, they jumped straight into the traffic and that day either those people would have they ran after my dog on, you know, from different directions, so that they could somehow catch him and he's a big, strong dog. So he tried to fight them off and the traffic it sort of started slowing down. They're seeing that this is happening. That does not happen in New York City. They're seeing that this is happening. That does not happen in New York City. In New York you just like nobody strangers do show kindness once in a while, but everyone it's like each man for himself, right? That's the kind of city because it's cutthroat, even on the sidewalks when you're walking. Nobody gives a damn if there's drama playing out, right? So they didn't have to do that, yet they did, and I saw that it took a while for them to drag Mowgli to the corner. Somebody figured out where is the leash, where is the harness. Somebody else figured out that I'm still in a state of shock. So they kind of made sure that you know I stopped shaking and they can give me the dog at a time where he's properly harnessed and I'm in the psychological state to actually carry my puppy back home.
Varuni :One, that creature, my beautiful dog, who had actually helped me snap out of my depression, who had taken me to the streets and shown me that life was still possible without having a job without too much changing for me, right? My dog would have been battered on the streets, right? If it was not for the kindness of these men. So I decided that I need to sit down and I need to take a, you know, complete. I need to look at my life all over again and I decided to make a list as to everything that has happened which is good for me and everything that has happened which is bad for me as an immigrant woman. I literally made a list and in that list, the good that had happened to me, that entire list, was way longer than the bad, and so I was like what are you even complaining about? You know that there's so many people who have shown up in your life and who have supported you at different times, at different junctures. So why does your brain constantly try to go and hold on to the negatives? And this is what I think happens to any individual. Any human being, you know, tries to hold on to the tragedy so that we feel self-important. That is why, you know, therapists talk about a gratitude journal, because it's the tendency of the human mind to go towards oh, this did not work out or that did not work out. But even at the end of a really tough day, even if you're grateful about one thing that can give you hope to carry on.
Varuni :And as soon as I had that sort of realization, I saw the story of an artist by the name of Richard Phillips, and I saw it almost simultaneously. It's like this realization dawns upon me. And then, on social media, I see the story of an African-American man who had been incarcerated for close to about 46 years for a crime that he had not committed. So he was put behind bars by somebody in his community that implicated him, and by the time that somebody actually came forward and said that I was not even there. I don't know this man, richard Phillips, had already spent 46 years for a murder that he did not commit In order to stay sane.
Varuni :During that time, richard Phillips would get up every day in the morning and he would make a watercolor painting, and that is what allowed him to carry on from one day to the other. And as I'm listening to this story on social media and as I'm looking at the beautiful explosion of colors in his watercolors, which are just very cheap, and he would paint them and he would hide them so that the people in the jail, the guards. They could not take away those little moments of freedom or beauty that he created for himself. So as I'm watching the story, I realize that both richard and I have two things in common we have abundance of time and we have creativity, and I can actually learn from that.
Varuni :Instead of blaming my husband or blaming circumstances that are out of my control, if I focus on what is in my control, what I can do is I can write my story.
Varuni :If I sit down today and start documenting everything that I have been through and, in spite of everything that I have been through, how I have allowed my perspective to change around, to turn around and look at and celebrate the glimpses of hope in every day, then perhaps I will be able to help anybody else in my situation.
Varuni :And I knew there were women like me who existed, and there are also other human beings who had met on the streets right, somebody who might have got cancer, who had met on the streets right, somebody who might have got cancer, somebody who's lost a limb, or somebody who's been deceived very badly by a family member, somebody who's experienced death. So when we experience such tragic events and still find a reason to carry on. That defines true strength and resilience. And if I learn from Richard Phillips that I can maximize my time, then he and I despite being in a jail because I thought I was in a jail, in a prison of sorts I will be completely free, and that's the day I decided to sit and start writing my story. It was actually during the pandemic, when we came back to New York City, when my husband had to go into cases on a daily basis where he was being exposed to the virus, that I sat and got very serious about finishing off my manuscript, which is out today as Golden Handcuffs.
Audra :And this is why I said in the beginning that, even though your story is one of despair, it is also one of hope, and even though yours is a story of immigration, it is a story that everybody can relate to, because, even though Richard Phillips was in a physical jail, how many people are in an emotional jail? Yeah, can be in touch with, and what you went through that people can relate to, and how you came out on the other side Is what gives people hope, and that is what I wanted to highlight today Is that you went through hell. Yeah, you walked through literal hell and somehow picked up pieces of yourself, because your life was shattered into pieces. What you had known to be yourself before could no longer be yeah, so you had to recreate something new. Yeah, no longer be, yeah, so you had to recreate something new. Yeah, and it's more beautiful than it was, than what you left behind. Yes, and I think that is the lesson, yes, that you are creating for, as a blueprint for others to learn from.
Varuni :Yes, and and when. When I did sit down to, you know, work on my manuscript very seriously. It's almost like when you sit down to actually do that act of courage, the universe will send more challenges your way when you actually sit down to okay, I'm going to defeat this challenge. I'm going to, you know, not allow it to defeat me. That's when I got pregnant and at the same time this was COVID, where we had already been going through a lot of, you know, emotional and psychological pressure because a lot of my husband's beliefs, because of overexposure to the virus in New York City, which at that time was the center of the epidemic. They had unfortunately lost their lives. So we were against. You know something that we didn't know we will survive when we were able to get past the first couple of rough months. I'm sitting on a daily basis sending out chapters to my editor so that she can try and piece together this as a story. But at the end of each day I'm actually scared with whether my husband will come back alive or not, whether I'll get COVID or not. It's a very strange experience. But at the same time I had this sort of feeling that if I don't write the book now, what if I actually die? And if I die, this will be the last thing that I put in print. So might as well do it today rather than tomorrow, and so get the story out now, because you could die and maybe use that to propel yourself forward. So that is what allowed me to get past the writer's block, to get past all those oh, I'll do it tomorrow which happens to a lot of creatives.
Varuni :However, unfortunately, we had two things which happened to a lot of creatives. However, unfortunately, we had two things which happened to us. I got pregnant, which was beautiful, which was amazing because we took a pause. You know, once the craziness of COVID kind of started like ebbing down. I got pregnant and we were very happy and we wanted to share it with our family.
Varuni :But my husband's mother contracted COVID at the same time in New Delhi and we found out that she because COVID, you know, unmasked a very strange behavior which was taking place with her and she wasn't making any cognitive sense. And before we knew it, within a week, we got the brain scans and realized that she had cleoblastoma, a brain tumor which kills a person within three to four months, and my husband, having gone through hell in the city had to figure out how he would get his mother, who could die in a couple of months, from New Delhi to New York, and the trauma of you know. He was brought up by a single mom because his father had a stroke early on and he is alive, but he's completely dependent. He was completely dependent on his wife. That's why he'd become a stroke doctor. He had to figure out how to, as on an immigrant visa he was not allowed to leave. So most of our lawyers they did not even make it that easy because they were like if you lose your job, we don't want to take the responsibility for it. He still took that risk, brought his dying mother home. We took care of her, but because of the stress of the situation, we lost our baby. So we went through all that but he still did not.
Varuni :Let me quit on writing my book, and I think that is an important lesson as well. When we take on this challenge of trying to defeat any problem that we face, sometimes we will be challenged by the universe with pain that can seem way more difficult to navigate. You know, to lose a child and then to. He lost his child and he lost his mother, the only person who brought him up and I physically had to go through that trauma. Honestly, I thought that when I had put myself in lockdown like self-imposed lockdown I was being trained for this period of time. Like, psychologically, I was being trained for it even before it happened. So I knew how to survive without external stimuli, and I knew how to completely focus on what is absolutely essential, which, at that point then, was to take my mother-in-law to her final days as I finished my manuscript. So, yeah, that was the final challenge which I had to go through.
Varuni :What I will tell you, though, is that, as people are reading this book, they could be anyone Like. This morning, I met an individual from Boston. He is actually an advertising executive. There's a single mom who's in Brooklyn. She works in a gym as a trainer, as a physical trainer. All kinds of people are reading this book who belong to different socioeconomic or racial backgrounds in America, and the one thing that they're talking about is how they all can relate to it, how everyone has golden handcuffs in their own lives, and how it's so important to focus on what we can control and what we can change. Otherwise, life is hard for anyone.
Audra :And the other thing is that there's always light at the end of the tunnel and that we are all just people, and as long as we remember that and connect with each other, then we're okay. Yes, do you mind sharing with the audience your light, your light at the end of the tunnel, what you've shared with me at the beginning?
Varuni :Yes, what I basically also my light was to understand that when you are being like, when you experience some of these things, even as an immigrant, you feel that this is being done specifically to you, that you're being targeted or everybody is against you. That is not the case. Or when someone goes through any tragedy of any nature, they feel that the world is against them it's me against the world, but that happens to everyone. So we all fall down, only to learn how to build ourselves back again, brick by brick. So darkness is not unique to any one individual. We can choose to remain in that darkness, to feel very special and self-important as tragic heroes. Yes, we can stay in that funk forever, like I was in that funk where I was drinking and angry and crazy towards my husband, or we can let go of that self-pity and think about how I'm going to start the journey of healing, and my light was essentially looking at the lives of those individuals who may have far fewer resources than I had.
Varuni :I did have food on the table, it's not to be taken for granted. I had a beautiful apartment. I had a husband who cared for me. These are important things. If you don't have a person who loves you. Life can be so lonely and meaningless for so many people here. This person was willing to do anything to try and solve my problems.
Varuni :Yet I was focusing on that one thing that did not work out for me. That is the light In anyone's life. There would be this one thing that they might be stuck upon. But if they look at the larger picture, in that larger picture, they will also find that there's so many people in the real margins of society, like when I went to East Harlem and I worked in Bowery Mission.
Varuni :I saw how painful the life of a person is who cannot even get proper food on the table for their kids, who has to figure out ways to get their kids off of the streets and send them to programs which are free and state-funded so that they don't get into drugs or crime. I actually witnessed it. And so when you don't see the light in your life, look at the lives of someone who has no one. Nothing, which is what I found amongst the homeless people on the streets, and some of them were the kindest people. So you will be surprised that people who have nothing may have the biggest and the largest heart. That was the light that I found and that we are all the same on every side of the divide, whether it's racial, political, economic.
Audra :We're all the same, and that's an important lesson to remember as we go forward. I am so honored and absolutely just humbled that you have chosen to share your story on my show. Thank you, share your story on my show, thank you. I am just so thrilled that you shared this with me and that I get the privilege of sharing your story with the audience. Thank you for writing this. Thank you for turning your story into one of hope and not of despair, and one that is so relatable regardless of our circumstances, and it literally gives us a pathway forward. So thank you, first of all, for writing it, for being brave enough to write it, and for spending the time with us today to tell us a little bit more about you and some insight, and for letting us feel like we're not alone in this big blue world of ours. So thank you for spending the time with us today.
Varuni :Thank you, audra, thank you so much for having me and giving me this platform.
Audra :Thanks, it has been my pleasure, and thank you all for listening and we'll see you again next time.
