L: Who was the most, or is, the most important person in your life?

S: The most important person in my life is probably my father. He passed away about a year and two months ago.

L: Say his name.

S: Sayeed Mon Amin Sohrewardy, that’s my father.

L: I didn’t know your middle name was from your dad.

S: It’s part of our culture that my dad would tell me a bedtime story. I used to look forward to going to bed simply because my father would paint this elaborate story in a far away distant land. My father would tell me a story and we’d fall asleep and my mother would come home at around midnight. She’d take me and my dad, he’d wake up, and they’d put me in my bed and that was the routine for about two or three years, every night a new story. The whole entire thing would be strictly in Urdu. It always started off in that same way: “Ay khani hummat kohl sa-nan-gay,” which means, “I’m going to tell you this one story.” Every single story always ended the same way. Like in English there’s “Happily ever after,” but with my dad it was, “Khani hattam”—story’s finished—“passa hazam”—money’s gone. I just loved it, so when a story would go on, I’d ask, in the middle of the story, “Khani hattam passa hazam?” you know, “Is it finished?” and he’d be like, no, no, not yet.