When Tulasi Acharya returns to Nepal from the United States to celebrate his daughter's first birthday, joy quickly turns to heartbreak. His mother-in-law dies unexpectedly, thrusting the family into a storm of grief, ritual, and reckoning. In the days and months that follow, Tulasi navigates not only his own sorrow, but the emotional collapse and mounting health crisis of his father-in-law-all while torn between continents, duties, and dreams. Like Water on Leaves of Taro is a tender, unflinching memoir that explores the fragility of life through the rhythms of Nepali culture and the enduring strength of family. Set against the backdrop of the Himalayan foothills and shadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the memoir weaves together moments of poetry, memory, and daily struggle. From sacred mourning rituals to hospital corridors, from whispered truths to unspoken cultural expectations, Tulasi reflects on the weight of responsibility as a son-in-law, a father, and a man stretched across two worlds. Through deeply personal chapters, the memoir honors grief while illuminating love in its quietest forms: a shared glance, a morning in the garden, a meal prepared in silence. It speaks to what it means to lose someone in a culture that doesn't always give daughters the same space to grieve-and how that grief can become a source of resilience and rediscovery.

For readers of The Long Goodbye, The Year of Magical Thinking, and When Breath Becomes Air, this book is an invitation to witness mourning as both personal and communal, grounded in ancient tradition yet deeply relevant in today's fractured world.