It was my intention to go out in Style&Snark, involving some kind of LiveBloggingEvent or Recap of Priya&Divya’s Super Sweet 16. But in light of Tuesday’s gripping events on a subcontinent where the Innocent&Hardworking cram 15-per-square meter traveling to and from work in order to put food on the table in the pursuit of better tomorrows, the trivial voyeuristic judgment of affluent, ill-mannered, hyphenated-American teenagers and the parents who indulge them suddenly seemed all the more irrelevant.

In my Sepia denouement, it seemed appropriate to disclose one small confession: I’m scared of Indians. Like, terrified. Like, if everyone in the last comment thread was standing together in a room, it would take me several cocktails to muster the courage to enter. And one of those cocktails would probably have to include some ratio of 151.

Seriously.

I’m scared of NetSAP, I’m scared of ISAs, I’m scared of regional conventions where everyone always seems to know each other but me. I’m scared of any organization that starts out “South Asian” and ends in “Association”. To that end, even from the safety of my pseudonym, it’s been slightly intimidating to write for a cast of anonymous brown thousands, always gripped by terror after I hit Post that my voice won’t resonate with the masses.

But over the course of my 30 days in this sepia-colored universe, I realized with some amount of humor and irony that despite my irrational fears — whether it wants me or I want it — this hyphenated-community is one of the only groups I’ll ever truly belong to; and certainly the only one that intrinsically understands the use of singular instead of plural (“Let me put my pant and shoe and come.”), plural instead of singular (“Good lucks on your maths test!”), and that some sentences just sound better in full-on Indian accents (“It’s paining!”). Three things central to the essence of who I am.

And so, with my secrets confessed, my awareness heightened, my insecurities challenged, I raise my glass to TheBloggers, TheBunkerMasters, TheAlumni, TheMutiny.

I’ll be managing my e-dive over on Typepad where — especially for you, my fellow residents of BrownTown — DrinkSpecials at Love&Haterade are always on the house.