Stories of Precarious Journeys
Aazhi Arasi
WHERE GOD BEGAN by By Appadurai Muttulingam. Translated from the original Tamil by Kavitha Muralidharan Eka, 2023, 169 pp., INR 499.00
October 2024, volume 48, No 10

‘A person without parents is an orphan. A person without a country is a refugee,’ explains Nishant, a Sri Lankan refugee when his Russian girlfriend Laura is baffled by the concept of ‘refugee’.

‘Will I reach Canada? My son keeps tutoring me over the phone. Tells me not to say this or that. Nobody tells me what I should say,’ frustratingly vents Kanakalingam, a fellow refugee who must pass off as a Canadian citizen at immigration with a fake passport.

‘Everyone around you is good… It is entirely different and torturous to be without a country. It is the worst form of punishment…They were not that way when they left Sri Lanka,’ advises another refugee, Ambikapathi, a Professor from Colombo.

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