Jersey author honors her childhood in motels

Grishma Shah spent her childhood in motels in Central Jersey—cleaning, working and living alongside her parents and relatives who owned them. For her, the Sleepy Hollow Motel in Lawrenceville was more than a business; it was home. 

Shah, who now lives in Monroe Township, grew up watching her family and other Indian immigrants toil for a better future for their kids, their sacrifices shaping her understanding of resilience and love.

Now the director of global business studies at Manhattan University and a fiction writer, Shah’s debut novel Anagram Destiny, released this month, draws from those early experiences.

“My book is a soul-warming love story that gives homage and honors a generation of immigrants in the United States who held their heads low, so their children could grow up and have a choice and do whatever they want,” Shah said.

The book focuses on the immigrant experience through the story of three characters: Aanya, Ayaan and Abhimanyu. The novel explores the American dream through the sacrifices of Aanya’s parents and grandparents, who built a life in the US, and the rising Indian dream in a rapidly globalizing world as Aanya relocates to India to work as a business consultant.

In Mumbai, Aanya meets Abhimanyu, the director of events at the Taj Palace Hotel, and is charmed by him. However, her past—growing up at a roadside motel in Georgia alongside Ayaan—makes it hard for her to fully embrace the present. Thousands of miles from home, Aanya must confront her fears and the weight of her past to move forward.

We spoke with Shah to learn more about her and the book.

What inspired you to go from academia to fiction?

As a professor and academic, I’ve studied globalization and written about it for academic purposes for a long time. After the 2016 US election, I felt overwhelmed by the state of the world, disengaged from the news, and began seeking more positive ways to make an impact.

I asked myself how to create something more positive. At a writing conference, an author mentioned that fiction has greater power than nonfiction. Nonfiction is often read by people with preexisting beliefs, while fiction readers tend to evoke more compassion because readers spend 10 hours with one character.

That was profound for me. I realized that if I wanted to reach a bigger audience and not just people reading academic papers, I needed to write something with a great story. Whether it’s about the immigrant experience or a love story, I could build in the things I care about. I hate it when fiction pushes an agenda too down your throat, so it’s built in very subtly.

Can you give an example of the book’s subtle messages?

About 60 to 70% of small to mid-sized motels in this country are owned by Gujarati families. My book is about two Gujarati families who worked at motels in the 1970s when they first arrived in the US. I set the story in Georgia because I wanted some distance from my own experiences.

One thing I found fascinating about the community is the private lending system that operates within it. In the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, and even today, many immigrant families didn’t have credit histories. Traditional banks wouldn’t give them loans so they began lending to each other. They would offer loans at higher-than-bank interest rates, but it was still a lifeline. For example, someone who already owned a motel might lend money to a friend trying to buy one. Another person might offer $2,000, and someone else would chip in $500. It was essentially microfinance.

It was based on trust and the idea that you’d repay the loan because you had to live in the community. The bonds created through this were incredibly strong. I often say that the bonds formed through the immigrant journey are stronger than blood ties.

Even today, my parents can drive up and down I-95, stop at any motel, find someone they know, and have chai and Gujarati snacks with them. I deeply appreciate the depth of those friendships. I don’t see that same level of connection in my generation because we’re not facing the same kind of struggles. 

How much of the story draws on your experiences?

Almost all the scenes in the motels, aside from the love story, come directly from my childhood memories. I moved to the US at seven, and my grandfather is very much the inspiration behind the character Raman. Like him, Raman is restless—constantly walking around the motel, fixing things that don’t even need fixing.

Many of the scenes are drawn directly from my life, like Aanya’s bucket shower in India. I described it in detail because I remember the science behind managing the water. If you're used to a regular shower, you might dump all the water on yourself and suddenly be left with conditioner in your hair and no water to rinse it off. But the next day, you figure it out—one container for rinsing, one for soaping up, and one to finish.

There’s another scene where Kishore, a character on a student visa, arrives on campus and is shocked to see girls tanning in bikinis, wondering, "What is this?" That’s literally taken from my life. I work at Manhattan University, and when my kids were babies, I often brought my parents with me. One August, it was the start of orientation, and I remember my father seeing all the students on the quad in shorts and bikinis. He was genuinely surprised and kept asking, "Is this college? Shouldn’t they be dressed professionally?" He even said in Gujarati, "Aa su badha nanga punga fare che"—"Why is everyone walking around half naked?"

Conclusion

As a diaspora writer, Shah embraces her learning curves with pride. Many immigrants discover new facets of their own culture when they visit their home countries, and feel a sense of isolation in the process. Shah’s perspective has a refreshing sense of innocence and openness in navigating these complexities.

Tehsin Pala is the associate editor of Central Desi.

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