Blog about Pooja Makhijani, School Lunch

In this story the young indian girl, Makhijani, is proud of her Indian roots but really wants to involve herself with American culture especially in her school lunch. Everyday her mom makes her native foods from their country and wraps it in her lunch box and sends her to school. Her mother is extremely proud of their culture and would never think of making a lunch for her daughter of American food. She feels it doesn't represent them and she feels its in her daughters best interest and nutrition to not give her Coca Cola and peanut butter and jelly but the native foods that her family loves. And every day Makhijani watches the other children eat their American lunches such as chicken fingers or mini pizzas while she throws away her unique foods such as her sandwhich of aloo tikkis. She wants to have normal American foods like the other kids but feels she sticks out like a sore thumb with her unique Indian cuisine. Until one day when a little girl from Pakistan comes to class named Aisha. Aisha is dressed in her cultures clothes that are called chappals on her feet and a dupatta on her body. However Aisha buys lunch everyday from the cafeteria at schoolwith many other kids in their class. They come back with things such as chicken nuggets, mini pizzas, etc. One day Aisha and Makhijani sit together during lunch. As they are talking Aisha notices that Makhijani has unique looking delicious foods in her lunch. She immediately recoginizes it as aloo tikkis and says that she wishes her mother would pack her that for lunch everyday. So Majhijani comes up with an idea that they will trade lunches everyday and she gets the American food. This arrangement works wonderfully and she loves that she found a way to Americanize her self without hurting her mothers feelings because her mother does not know that she is giving her lunch away. Majhijani does not plan to tell her and quietly enjoys her American cafeteria food everyday for the rest of the year.