Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a boy who grew up being bullied and mocked. A fresh-faced college dropout, trying to survive on part-time gigs after moving to Srinagar. Learning to walk with dignity, he is trying to carve out a place for himself in a world that offers no applause. The person he adored the most is gone from his life. He is almost abandoned and emotionally damaged. His phone rarely rings. He has been written off, even by some of his very ‘own’.

This young man had two options: sink or swim. He decided to swim against the tide. This below-average student from Baramulla is now at the same table as minds from Columbia and Cornell, LSE and Oxford. He earned highly prestigious national and international scholarships and fellowships. The first book he co-authored in 2024 is published by a European think-tank. His readers, colleagues and clients are scattered across six habitable continents. This doctoral researcher just represented 1.46 billion fellow citizens, 18% of the world population. The simple answer to how he got here is that he stopped believing other’s opinions were destiny. Now open your eyes. That boy is writing to you from Nairobi.

Roy. Resilience. Runaway. 

Six flights, five cabs, several shuttles and in between I finished reading Arundhati Roy’s recently published memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. The title is taken directly from the lyrics of the Beatles song “Let It Be,” specifically the line: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me.”

Her words felt heavier, especially when she said she left home with nothing but pain, something I know too well. “Even the very poor had families, communities. I had nobody.” That line stayed with me. So did “Get out of my home.” In Roy’s book, it is more than a mother’s thorny diktat. It is an invisible wound. One that does not heal with time. Roy left Kottayam when she was 18 for never to return, I left little later, with a shoestring budget, perhaps for never to return to the same space. I, too, learned to live like a bird on the wire — alert, prepared, always ready to fly.

Stamp, Smiles and Sauna.

Unlike my previous foreign travels, immigration experience was pretty smooth. When the officer at Delhi airport asked, “Why do you want to go to Kenya?” I slipped out my sponsor’s invitation letter. “I am speaking about migration, refugees, border crisis, big tech authoritarianism and of course India’s digital revolution,” I replied. She smiled, stamped my passport, and the three words that escaped her lips warmed my midnight exhaustion: “Best of luck.” I carried those words like a blessing at terminal 03 of Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi, the world’s most polluted city, as per IQAir, the Swiss air quality firm.

Hopping on the connecting flight from Sharjah, I reached my hotel and was greeted by smiling receptionists decked out in professional style. The staff told me about the air conditioning, the Wi-Fi, the complimentary steam bath, swimming pool, Sauna and the massage services and that I could come back to the front desk or call anytime if I needed anything. It was only 4 PM local time, but my day was done. Jetlagged and running on fumes, I collapsed into bed and slept, confident that the daze and disorientation of travel would fade after a night’s rest.........

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