How to interview your parents from another country

New Jersey is nine and a half hours behind Pune. The book can still get made. Pick the right hour, record at their end, and save three sessions for the trip home.

Read the full guideAsk me to do it

What Zoom and Google Meet can record was read on their own support pages on 17 September 2026. Two things I could not verify are marked on the line.

New Jersey is nine and a half hours behind Pune in summer and ten and a half in winter. Your mother is sharpest at ten in the morning. That is half past midnight for you. This page is about that problem and the four smaller ones behind it.

It sits beside the full twelve-step guide. The plan there, ten sessions of ninety minutes, stays the same. Here is what changes when there is an ocean in the way.

1/ Find the hour

The rule for an older parent is mornings. From abroad you will break that rule in two of six cases, and late afternoon, after the nap and the tea, is the next best slot. India does not change its clocks. You do, so the winter time is in brackets.

Fix the slot for all ten sessions and put it in both calendars before the first one. A parent who knows it is every Sunday at half past six starts remembering on Friday.

2/ Record at their end

A call squeezes a voice. The recording you want is made by a microphone a hand’s width from your father’s chin, in his room. The call is only how you ask the questions. Here are the ways to get that, best first.

Whichever you pick, say the label at the start of every session: names, date, city, session number. And tell your parent each time that the recorder is on. They agreed in the consent note. Tell them anyway.

Do a five-minute rehearsal two days before session one. Record, stop, send the file, play it. Audio problems show up in the first session. A rehearsal moves them to a Friday that does not matter.

3/ Use the sibling who lives nearby, and split the job

Most diaspora families have the same shape. One child abroad with the money and the guilt, one child in the same city with the access and the fatigue. This book needs both, and it goes wrong when both try to do the same half.

Split it down the middle. The job has two halves, the asking and the writing. Often the sibling nearby is the better asker, because they can sit in the room, see the face, and put the photograph on the table. Often the sibling abroad is the better writer, because distance makes it easier to hear a parent as a character. If that is your family, the nearby sibling runs the ten sessions from the hundred questions, and you take the tapes and write.

If you are doing the asking from abroad, the sibling nearby is the operator and nothing else. Microphone, recorder, tea, out. Two children in one session turns an interview into a family conversation, and the parent performs for the family.

Name one decider for the book before you begin. It is in step one of the guide and it matters twice as much across time zones.

4/ Save three sessions for the trip home

If you fly home once a year, plan the book around the visit. Three sessions are worth doing in person.

Session one, the house. The first session sets the habit, and a parent who has done one across a table will do the next nine on a screen.

Session nine, loss and what held. You do not ask your mother about the day her husband died over a call that might drop.

Session ten, the photographs. The albums need hands. You will be pointing and turning pages, with the recorder on, while she names every face. Scan on the same trip. The photograph step has the settings.

If the trip is at the end of the project, run sessions two to eight on calls first and do one, nine and ten in one week at home. The order bends. The red pen does not: bring the printed draft on the next trip, or courier it, and give them two weeks with it.

5/ Ask in their language, write in your children’s

You think in English now. Your father’s childhood did not happen in English. If you ask in English you get the version he has prepared for foreigners, and you are now one of them.

Ask in Tamil, in Gujarati, in whatever the kitchen ran on. If yours has rusted, ask anyway. A parent correcting your grammar is a parent who is relaxed. Transcribe in the language spoken. The transcription step lists which tools handle which Indian languages, and none of them handles the mix, so the correction pass is yours.

Then write the book in English, because the readers are your children, and keep the words that carry weight in the original. What he called his mother. What she shouted from the balcony. The line from the film. Those stay, in italics, with no footnote.

Questions people ask

Can I record a life-story interview over a video call?

Yes. The best recording is made at your parent’s end, by a helper or by the parent on their own phone with a clip-on microphone, while you ask on a video call. Zoom can record for free on the desktop app. Google Meet needs a paid plan to record.

What is the best time to call parents in India from the US or UK for a long conversation?

From California, their Sunday 10 am is your Saturday evening. From the US East Coast, book their Sunday 6:30 pm, which is your Sunday 9 am in summer. From London, their Sunday 5 pm is your 12:30 pm in summer. Fix one slot for all ten sessions.

Can my sibling in India do the interviews while I write the book?

Yes, and it is often the best split. The sibling nearby can sit in the room and handle photographs. The sibling abroad writes from the recordings. Agree one decider for the book before you start.

Which sessions should I do in person?

The first, to set the habit. The one about loss, which should not depend on a connection. And the photographs, because albums need hands. Seven of the ten work on a call.

My parents are not comfortable with technology. What then?

Then somebody in their city has to press the button. A relative, a neighbour’s student, a paid helper for ninety minutes a week. If there is nobody, that is a reason to hire the asking out. I run the sessions on a call your parent can manage, and the recording becomes my problem. That is the gift book.