Home(s)

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.

Who am I?

Woman,  academic, activist, atheist, Indian, South Asian, Indo-South African, Indo-Canadian,  person of colour, writer, student of painting and music, foodie, and 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 as an academic.)

What’s this space for?

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.

Meenal’s Blog: Life and All That is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Email for permissions beyond the scope of this license.

Chronic Pain in the Age of Ozempic

The Weight of Pain

Homage to Homes: A Painting Series

‘Home’ for me is a series of places. A Bihari growing up in Rajasthan, a foreigner teaching in South Africa, and an immigrant living and working in Canada, ‘otherness’ has defined my identity and moulded my relationship with ‘place’. Shielded from the worst of the immigrant experience by my caste and class privileges, I bear the marks of my multiple homes and neighbourhoods on my body, spirit, and perspectives.

In February 2020, I attended my first class of watercolour painting by Richard Wong and loved his minimalistic technique of painting on Masa paper. I continue to attend his classes, as much as time allows, to learn and work on wildlife inspired paintings. In the summer of 2021, I joined a course taught by Leah Mcinnis of the Vancouver Island School of Art to work on a series of paintings related to place/home/neighbourhood. Richard’s techniques influence most of my watercolours, but instead of using Masa paper, which I find less forgiving, these paintings are on cold-press 140 lbs acid-free paper. This series of paintings pays homage to my homes on three continents.

An Un-lived Home

My father took this picture of my mother standing in the window of his once proud and bustling, but now empty, ancestral home, which they visited as newly weds. They returned to the ancient house only once again, several years later, for one night with their teenage children. In the Alzheimer redacted memories of my father though, it remained his home, as it does mysteriously for me. I have retained the tilted angle of my father’s picture but I have added the leaves of the Banyan tree in front of the house, under which I imagine my father would have had to stand to capture this moment in time. (Lehna, Bihar)

The Flame of the Forest and the Pearl of the Desert

I was born and raised in Jaipur, a city of forts, palaces, temples, and a million festivals. Significantly predating the historic city built in 1727, this centuries old fortress sits on a small hill shaped like a pearl (Moti Doongri) outside the walled Pink-City. In the twentieth century, the globetrotting Maharaja and Maharani of Jaipur added elements of a Scottish castle during its most recent renovation. Circling the foothills of Moti Doongri in present day Jaipur, is a busy arterial street, JLN Marg, adorned with the flamboyant Gulmohar or Flame of the Forest trees on either side of the street. A native of Madagascar, the Gulmohar tree is regarded as naturalised in many locations where it grows, which is virtually anywhere in the world with mild to hot climate. To me, these are reminders that all history, heritage, and experience is multi-centered, we just need to pay attention. (Jaipur)

If Purple were a place, it would be like Jo’burg in Spring

Planted on a massive scale in Pretoria and Johannesburg in the 1800s, the Jacaranda is a successful immigrant from central America to South Africa. Now the biggest urban forest in the world, the land on which Johannesburg is built was once grassland. Along with the grassland, the black and brown populations of South Africa were banished from these spectacular urban spaces. Arriving in South Africa after the end of Apartheid, I spent a near decade in a new nation full of hope, but struggling to reconcile with the truth of its past. The fondest memories of my South African home are the Jacaranda blossom-laden streets every spring, purple canopies and purple carpets as far as the eyes can see. The walls peeking from behind the row of trees are a sad and ubiquitous reminder of crime and inequity that continue to beleaguer this beautiful country. If you look closely at the metal gate though, you will see the shadowy memory of two large dogs waiting patiently for my partner and me to return home. (Linden, Johannesburg)

amiskwaciy-wâskahikan

My home for nine years (or 18 winters for this tropically oriented person), Edmonton sits in Treaty 6 territory, a traditional gathering place, travelling route, and home to many Indigenous peoples for millennia. Now also a melting pot of diverse ethnicities from around the world, the city is finally beginning to recognize its Indigenous roots in public art. Some of these Indigenous symbols are hiding in plain sight in this painting. Along with several music and arts festivals, the River Valley, especially in the fall, is the highlight of this city. This long urban Aspen Parkland along the North Saskatchewan River stretches over 7,400 hectares, divided into 22 major parks, and covers over 150 kilometres of trails. I remain connected to Edmonton through my work and the anchoring, nurturing, progressive community that still makes it feel like home to me. During the near decade I lived in Edmonton, I learnt about my strength, as well as its limits. (River Valley, Edmonton)

The W̱SÁNEĆ People on the Salish Sea

In December 2014, my partner and I, and our fifteen-year-old mutt Gauri, took the train from Edmonton to Vancouver, and then the ferry ride to Swartz Bay. We traded our urban living for life on an (almost) acreage in the unceeded Coast Salish territory. Gauri lived long enough to check out all the seasons on the island and to make a trip to the western edge of the world in Tofino. She ensured that we were settled in our new home before crossing the rainbow bridge at the wise old age of sixteen. This painting’s perspective is from my favourite walking path along the water, and adapted from a photo I took of one of the scores of beautiful traditional canoes that were part of the annual Coast Salish Canoe Journeys in 2018. The 10,781 ft (3,286 m) glacier-covered active volcano, Kulshan (aka Mt. Baker) overseas the scene serenely. (Sidney, BC)

Furry and Feathered Neighbours

I cannot but relate to the meandering historical trajectory of my neighbourhood. Home to the Coast Salish W̱SÁNEĆ people for millennia, Spanish and British expeditions in the 18^th century led to imperial occupation and European settlements on Vancouver Island, including on the point where our neighbourhood sits. Wylie Blanchet is perhaps the most famous resident of this neighbourhood. In the Curve of Time (1961) her poetic prose recorded the sublime beauty of the Pacific Coast and the dense forest that used to be Curteis Point. Now, like everywhere else on the Island, roofs are supplanting tree-canopies, asphalt is replacing roots, and the remaining majestic clusters of trees are under the constant threat of ‘development’. While watching this rapid transformation with alarm, my partner and I love that our partially fenced yard is a home and passage to numerous birds, insects, rabbits, squirrels, deer, raccoons, otters, snakes, and other creatures, at least for the time being. (Curteis Point)

Defying All Odds

I did this painting in one of Richard’s classes, but it belongs in this series. For me, this is an iconic image for Vancouver Island, not only representing the magnificent beauty of the trees that make up the Pacific Rainforest, but also signifying their vulnerability in the face of logging, climate change, and human settlement expansion. We have been fortunate to visit some of the last remaining old-growth forests on the island and the mainland. Being in the midst of some of the longest living denizens of the earth – hundreds of years old giant Red Cedars, mossy Cottonwoods, twisty Arbutus, towering Firs, lofty Hemlocks, gnarly oaks, wind-swept Sequoias – inspires profound feelings that are indescribable in words. Here a lone Fir tree pokes out of the misty Fairy Lake with majestic tenacity, as though urging us to keep resisting and do better. (Fairy Lake, Port Renfrew)