Telegu

Now, as second lady, Usha has the heady job of reminding everyone that, actually, a Telegu Brahmin is perfectly capable of aligning with an often racist Republican party.

I am not South Indian, but their culture feels familiar, from years of listening to Carnatic music, dancing for Onam, hearing the lilting cadences of friends’ parents and Rathna Auntie speaking Telegu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam.

Ravindra Kumar, a Telegu Desam Party MP from the same state, said that Kashmir having its own constitution and flag gave it “special powers that are discriminatory.”

On Thursday, the Telegu Desam party MP appeared in a brown suit with a swastika armband and wore a narrow moustache.

The brother and sister don’t speak the local Hindi or Marathi languages – they came here, to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, 10 days ago from their village, Andhra, and grew up speaking the regional language of Telegu.