This is a piece that was published several years ago in a non-fiction anthology, under one of my other writing names.
Inheriting Remembrance
We immigrated to Canada when I was three years old. I have a handful of memories—each the size of a Pocket Instamatic photo—of my formative years in India, and a teacup’s worth of sensory impressions.
I also have several suitcases of memories that don’t belong to me.
Those memories—fragile, crumbling, second hand—are my legacy. They’re all I’ve got to link me to a world that has now disappeared—the Anglo-India (sometimes called British India) of the early and mid-twentieth century. Grounded in a hybrid, Anglo-Indian culture, those memories are also unique to the experiences of their original owners.