South Asian Girls Are the Stars — Not the Sidekicks —in Desi Chick Lit

Harry Potter had us in the back. Now we are front and center.

Illustration: Aishwarya Srivastava

I spent most of my childhood years completely and truly convinced that one day Warner Brothers producers would show up on my doorstep to cast me as Parvati or Padma Patil in the Harry Potter movies. At the time, my younger sister looked like…