With Memorial Day upon us, it is worth sharing a little-known fact about the  deeply revered and beautiful Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC.  The Memorial will be forever tied to the hills of South India.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has a unique and unmistakable design by Maya Lin, with a centerpiece consisting of two walls of solid polished black granite, each one 246 feet and 9 inches long.  These walls list the names of 58,307 American men and women who were killed or MIA due to the Vietnam War, etched into stone.  The gigantic blocks of black granite were imported all the way from Karnataka, India, the home state of my family and one of the few places in the world where shiny black granite is to be found.  It helps make the Memorial reflective- in more ways than one- with a spirit that extends to other monuments…