Guest Post by AMRITA NANDY

I have recently come to the US for a year. My “settling down” has happened under the viral shadows of the Rose Chasm debates. (See HERE and HERE)

Personally, the online exchanges struck a chord for me because I too, like Rose, am a student who is new in a foreign country and to its culture, trying to feel at home, adjust, mingle, accommodate and, most of all, make sense of some new experiences.

Before you point out that this juxtaposition of Rose’s context with mine is too simplistic and reductive, allow me to say “of course”.

Of course! A comparison, contrast or parallel of our respective experiences is not where I am headed to.

This is merely my account of being an outsider in America. More precisely, this is my attempt to engage with the articulation of fear in its many avatars and contexts.