Different

I spent my childhood in Zambia. I felt completely at home there, part of the social fabric. There was a large Indian community, both local and expat, so integrating wasn’t difficult, besides, children don’t see difference as a dividing factor, not until they are grown up enough to cause trouble, anyway.

My parents decided to move back to India when I was 14. It wasn’t a sudden decision; they’d been mulling it over for more than a year. When I told friends and school mates that I was leaving, one of them asked me if my parents were planning to marry me off. That day I realized I was different.