As first-generation Indian-American artists, we feel a dual responsibility to honor the traditions of our birthplace while absorbing the cultural codes of our new home. We examine the perennial questions of the immigrant: How to transmit traditions and cultural wisdom across time and place? What is maintained? What is left behind?

The Fires of Varanasi has grown out of our personal experience of our father/grandfather’s death away from his homeland. Constant themes of resilience and continuity during the Hindu death ritual were striking. Our conversations about migration, cultural transmission, changing power structures within our communities, and death in the diaspora become a microcosm for a broader need for societal sustenance across generations.