Free Yes, My Accent Is Real by Kunal Nayyar

some brought chicken salad; I always brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because it was the only thing I knew how to make.
    As the summer drew to a close, on one of my last days on the job, I had to drive the mini-truck to the computer lab, where I was told to pick up a desk. Easy enough. I drove the truck up a long ramp, parked it on the landing in the front of the building, and went inside to help the guys lift the desk.
    Then I heard screaming.
    I ran outside.
    The mini-truck was rolling backward. Down the ramp. With no one in it.
    At the bottom of this ramp is the main university lawn, the kind of picnic area that they show in every college brochure where students are reading and playing Frisbee and sunbathing. The truck careened straight toward this lawn, and before I could makea move, the truck hit the bottom of the ramp, toppled upside down in the picnic area, and flipped on its belly.
    Oh man .
    In my hurry to grab the desk I had forgotten to set the emergency brake, and the truck simply glided back down the ramp.
    Out of nowhere—somehow within seconds—a man came sprinting toward the scene, barking into a walkie-talkie. A short, stocky guy. Looked like a God of War villain. It was Luis. My boss.
    â€œIs anyone hurt?” Luis asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAny damage?”
    No damage. Luis immediately took command of the scene. He set the place in order and right there I saw why my boss was the boss.
    In that moment, of course, I was worried about the truck and anyone on the lawn who might be hurt, but later, when the guilt began to creep into the pit of my stomach, I worried this would cause problems with the university and/or jeopardize my scholarship. What if this incident cost me everything that my family had invested? Life doesn’t just fuck you over on a Saturday night when you’re blackout drunk; it can just as easily fuck you over on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re going to lift a desk.
    But Luis took the fall. He wouldn’t tell the department which one of his guys had made the mistake and, as a result, he was suspended for two weeks without pay.
    â€œThat’s not right,” I said. “It should be my punishment.”
    Luis wouldn’t listen to me.
    I felt awful. “Please. It’s my fault. Fire me. I’ll fire myself. I’m fired.” I still feel awful. I pleaded for him to let me take the blame,but no matter what I said, he wouldn’t budge. He insisted on being my fall guy.
    I suppose we all had each other’s backs. We all screwed around and we told dirty jokes and we laughed at each other’s expense, and maybe we all came from different walks of life and places of origin—immigrants, marines, Nepal, Texas, India—but at the end of the day it didn’t matter. At the end of the day we stuck together. We had an unspoken bond; together we were safe.
    Many years later, my wife and I endowed a scholarship at the University of Portland. For the inauguration of the fund I came to the school auditorium to give a little speech to the students. There were about three hundred people in the room.
    In the back of the auditorium, someone raised his hand. An older guy.
    â€œYou won’t remember me, but we worked together once,” the man said.
    It was Khrish.
    We ran toward each other with open arms. It felt like the movies. We hugged in the center of the stage as the crowd erupted in applause.
    Later that night we met for beers and swapped life stories. Nothing much had changed in his life. Except for one thing.
    He had a new song.
    And you know what?
    It wasn’t bad. It was actually, dare I say it, decent.
    And this time no one laughed.

Holiday Traditions Part 2: Dussehra
    Dussehra ( du-SHAR-uh ): n. annual Hindu festival taking place in the fall, celebrating the victory of good over evil.
    DUSSEHRA IS MY FAVORITE INDIAN festival because, when Iwas a kid, at night our family would walk to the nearest public park, where a