After a long shift of making pasta and pizzas at the University of Illinois dining hall, I was exhausted — and deserved a treat.
It was the 1990s, I was an international graduate student, and as I made my way back to my apartment in Champaign, I saw a small new Indian restaurant at the edge of campus and skeptically stepped inside. Familiar aromas greeted me. My latent homesickness from several months away from family in Mumbai finally registered, because it seemed to lift.