Autobiography

One of my classes assign us to write an autobiography in 6 - 8 pages. This has proven difficult. I am unsatisfied with mine,but here are the first two paragraphs

The first 10 months of my life must have been the most exciting. Every so often, from my older siblings and mother, I get tidbits of information of what it must have been like but no one talks about it at length, because those were the cult days. Once I found my first passport. There is a black and white photo of my face glued to the inside cover, my little fist pressed into my chubby cheek. I am bald, but sleeping peacefully. I was born to be a world traveler and accomplished it before I spoke my first word. I am my mother’s fourth and last child, and I was born in a bedroom with a midwife in the south Indian city of Madras, now called Chennai. When people ask where I was born, it always leads to more questions, like why India. I usually say my mother was living there, and I was very close to her at the time. But that too leads to more questions. Questions I answer differently depending on my mood, and who is asking. But the more detailed of an answer I give, the more of disappointment I feel it is.

I am not Indian; I do not have dual citizenship (India does not allow it); I do not remember anything about India; but it’s always been an unexplainable part of me. Dhal and rice has always been a household staple. As a child my prized possession was an elephant carved from wood, outfitted in ornate Indian jewelry and carriage. In fifth grade, when we were given paper dolls to take home to dress up in the clothes of our cultural heritage, my mom helped me fashion a small sari from red and yellow scraps of cloth. And all of this made perfect sense to me. In fact, for the first part of elementary school, I believed my dark hair and olive complexion could be attributed to the fact I was born in India. My beautiful, blonde-hair blue-eyed sister with skin so fair, it always sunburned, looked so different from me because she was born in a different country—Greece, a place I pictured teaming with blonde-blue-eyed gods and goddesses like Aphrodite. It was a shock when years later I learned Greeks looked nothing like my sister.