See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

Partner to Valarie Kaur, Sharat Raju is an American director and writer whose work focuses prominently on American immigrants. Raju grew up in Darien, Illinois. He attended the University of Michigan and earned an MFA from the American Film Institute. Kaur describes Sharat as a handsome and patient man who helps her to be a better Sikh practitioner, even though he is not Sikh himself. She writes, “Sharat waltzed into the frame with his wide smile, unbridled laughter, and endless stories, and, before long, whenever the phone rang, my heart leapt into my throat” (108).

In the narrative, he represents a positive change in Kaur’s life. Her relationship with him allows her to heal from her past sexual assault, and he becomes her source of support even as her family rejects him since he’s not Sikh. He also helps her heal from the shame she feels about her body and be comfortable in her own skin. Along with being her life partner, he is her creative collaborator; they created the documentaries Oak Creek: In Memoriam and The Worst of the Worst: Portrait of a Supermax Prison together.

Kaur’s cousin, Roshan appears in the text as a perpetrator who sexually assaults Kaur as a teen. He later threatens to kill Sharat and pulls a gun on Kaur when she tries to reconcile with him. Roshan haunts Kaur’s imagination long after these events, and his presence in the text highlights the cyclical nature of abuse and the possibilities of transformative justice. Roshan’s father had an alcohol addiction and abused his wife. As an Indian man in post-9/11 America, Roshan became obsessed with cultural loss and lashed out when Kaur began dating a non-Sikh. Toward the end of the text, Roshan takes responsibility for his actions and offers an apology to Kaur, which she accepts. This apology is represented as a model for positive reconciliation and moving forward from trauma.