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Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
Leaving India My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents Author:Minal Hajratwala An inspiring personal saga that explores the collisions — of choice and history that led one unforgettable family — to become immigrants — In this groundbreaking work,Minal Hajratwala mixes — history,memoir, and reportage to explore the questions — facing not only her own Indian family but that of every — immigrant:Where did we come from?Why did we le... more »ave?
What did we give up and gain in the process?
Beginning with her great-grandfather Motiram's original
flight from British-occupied India to Fiji, where he rose from
tailor to department store mogul,Hajratwala follows her
ancestors across the twentieth century to explain how they
came to be spread across five continents and nine countries.
As she delves into the relationship between personal choice
and the great historical forces?British colonialism,
apartheid,Gandhi's Salt March, and American immigration
policy?that helped to shape her family's experiences,
Hajratwala brings to light for the very first time the story of
the Indian diaspora.
This luminous narrative by a child of immigrants offers
a deeply intimate look at what it means to call more than
one part of the world home. Leaving India should find its
place alongside Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family
and Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: A Search for Six of Six