Vinati Sukhdev

A guide for raising kids in the West
What is it like to raise two Indian kids in the West? Two years ago, former Mumbai journalist Vinati Sukhdev, now settled in London, first began asking this question to herself. With two grown-up daughters, it seemed like a defining point in Sukhdev's life to look back at how difficult parenting had been. Her new book East or West: An NRI Mother's Manual On How To Bring Up Desi Children Overseas (Westland) was born out of these ruminations. The book that deals with a range of NRI problems, including food, peer pressure, racism, marrying foreigners, explores how parents who were born Indian, deal with their NRI children on whom 'Indianness' is thrust. "Since I never had any help or advice when raising my kids abroad, I thought this book would be a good reference point for other NRI parents," says Sukhdev, who helms the UK arm of NGO Pratham.