Unfurled, it looks like a cartographic chart: a navigator’s map to travel the salty oceans, from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back again. It’s horoscopic, rife with details about my future.

It is sweltering inside the tiny and cramped apartment in Mumbai. Outside the rusty barred windows, the thin bamboo trees sway gently in the scant breeze. The heat and humidity of the city are almost insufferable. My aunt K is carefully supervising dinner preparations in the tight galley kitchen. I savour the scent of cinnamon and cardamom as they hang in the air. Puris lie in wait in silver thalis, sweating under metal lids. My mouth waters. Read more →

Although it looked small on a map, the extensive size of the Australian continent was coming into view. I had travelled to Australia to learn about the individual and societal impacts of inter-generational trauma that still linger from the 80-year forced migration of 162,000 convicts, including children as young as nine years old, who were imprisoned in chain gangs and on isolated housing estates. While learning about the brutality of the convict system, I tripped over the equally important and traumatic story of displacement and incarceration of Indigenous peoples. Read more →