What is ‘home’ for an immigrant? I am acutely aware of my privilege in claiming to have multiple homes. My upbringing in India has imparted indelible marks on my body, psyche, and taste buds, and it is thus my first home. South Africa is home by virtue of being my first karma-bhumi and the near-decade I spent connecting with the beautiful land, its resilient people, and my vast circle of family and close friends. And now, Canada is home. Not just a place where I live and work, but also the place where I am most ‘at home’  – as much as an irrepressibly independent woman can be. My multiple homes have taught me valuable lessons about diversity of perspectives in the world. These homes continue to help me to learn about, engage with, and redefine community in unexpected ways. In particular, they continue to teach me about our relentlessly interconnected and unequal world.

Woman,  academic, activist, atheist, Indian, South Asian, Indo-South African, Indo-Canadian,  person of colour, child-less (or child-free, depending on your perspective), a perpetual outsider in the country of my birth and the country(s) of adoption. I stick out for far too many reasons. I also continue to learn about the burdens and privileges associated with the numerous identifiers that others and I use to define ‘me’. (Here’s my piece on the role of identities/identifiers for an academic.)

There is little room for creative and engaging writing in a professional academic career. Academic prose is deliberately distant and intentionally impersonal. It circulates within the echo-chambers protected by the pay-walls of peer-reviewed scholarly publications. This is equally true of the bulk of my publications in the form of journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, policy reports, etc.

At various points in life though, creative writing has been a refuge, a channel, and a hearkening for me. Most importantly, I have come to realize that a story can make issues of social science research immediate and personal, making it a powerful tool of intellectual stimulation and emotional persuasion, especially in the era of post-truth politics fueled by anti-intellectualism.

Historically, anti-intellectualism has been used by totalitarian regimes as a tool to repress political dissent. Currently, it appears to be aiding divisive politics around the world, which prevents humanity to work towards just and viable solutions to address existential issues of economic, social, political, and environmental crises.

Perhaps one way out of this descent into the cult of ignorance is to tell compelling and relatable stories using the spirit and tools of critical inquiry to explain complex concepts. Simple stories that help us understand how individual lives intersect with broad social/political trends, and why it matters.

I am thus using this space to share my simple stories in that spirit. Some of these essays/poems/photo-stories have embedded links or a reference list for further reading and some of these are just simple stories celebrating the human and non-human connections in my life.

I recently had the honour and pleasure of co-editing a collection of creative writings and art with a group of inspiring editors and contributors. The twenty-five contributors of Write in Power: An Anthology of the Personal and the Political (The Hidden Pen Collective: Bangalore, 2021) are women or non-binary persons of South Asian origin living in India, Bangladesh, Canada, the US, and the UK. Looking beyond gender and class, the perspectives in this collection speak to the complex intersections of the personal and the political. In keeping with our commitment to justice and inclusion, all proceeds from the sales of the book will go directly to the Haadibadi Trust towards their work of building free publicly owned community libraries that are accessible to all and are creating spaces for learning and expression through theater. You can buy the eText, Print (B&W), or Print (Colour) versions of this book directly from Pothi (it requires you to create an account. The price difference reflects the printing costs.). You can also order this book through your local bookstore or library.

My first book-length work of creative non-fiction, Amma’s Daughters: A Memoir is the story of my grandmother who was imprisoned for treason and sedition at the age of twelve in India in 1930.

Amma’s Daughters was the Book of the Year finalist in the Non-Fiction category, Alberta Book Publishing Award, 2019. It has been adopted in courses and has been widely reviewed, notably in World Literature Today, DEP: Deportate, esuli, profughe, and in Women’s Web.

You can download the open-source copy of the book here or you can buy the paperback by ordering it through your local bookstore or library. If you prefer to have the book read out to you, please try this link.

Another open-source book, Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada (AUP, 2015) presents a unique case study for testing the ‘oil inhibits democracy’ hypothesis in the context of an industrialized nation in the Global North. In probing the impact of Alberta’s powerful oil lobby on the health of democracy in the province, contributors to this volume engage with an ongoing discussion of the erosion of political liberalism in Alberta and beyond.

This volume has been adopted in several course reading lists. It was on The Hill Times list of best books in 2016 and the recipient of the Lois Hole Award for Editorial Excellence for editing for Joyce Hilderbrand.

You can download the open-source copy of the book here or you can buy the paperback by ordering it through your local bookstore or library.