 Hello everybody and Welcome this morning. It's such a gorgeous morning to be talking about gorgeous books with an amazing audience I'm loving the fact that it's going to fill up Because we have incredibly talented incredibly valuable assets of the literary world on stage here with me I'd like you to present to you Grace Nichols Whose passport to here and there is the latest book by this prolific and acclaimed Guyanese writer and playwright and the most Recent recipient of the Queen's gold medal for poetry First collection I is a long-memored woman from 1983 won the Commonwealth poetry poetry prize That that's Grace's sorry grace. I beg your pardon. This is grace, please Barbara Jenkins is the person I was misnaming there Her memoir The Stranger Who Was Myself is the Trinidadian author's latest book her debut novel The Rightest Place Was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize and that's Barbara Hello and Irramathe is the debut author of Love the Dark Days It's a memoir about the emotional ruins of the Empire on three generations of women set in Trinidad St. Lucia India and Britain and its book ended by a weekend with there with Derek Walcott Welcome to you all and thank you so much Now I kind of terrified the organizers of this Meeting and this gathering by telling them that I had no idea where to start with anything because there was so much and And so many questions just tumbled out of my brain as I was right as I was reading your books this week And can I just say that the books are very very beautiful books beautiful artifacts beautiful usable tangible objects that you can See and smell and and handle so buy them. Don't kindle it. These are beautiful books to have in your house So I'm going to start actually by asking grace to read a little bit about poetry we're gonna start with poetry because the three books written that we've discussing this morning are essentially broadly called life writing because they memoir and They describe epic journeys that were taken by The three people that you see sitting here and they've written about those and we've all taken epic journeys I think just looking at the faces in this room our families our ancestors have taken epic journeys to bring us over here And we're going to find the connections between us in the books that we're going to be here Hearing about today and we're going to start with Grace's poetry grace. Thank you Hi, everyone. It's wonderful to be here as part of this great literary festival. That's called Boca's and and The team broadly speaking as I was told is displacement and homeland. So I'll try to relate what I say my poems to that I was going to begin by reading from my latest book Passport here and there, but I feel this particular poem touches on the heart of Migration and displacement and home what's home because like migration and home are like two sides of the same coin and When you leave your homeland you leave because of something in our case Myself and the Pueja on a guard my husband We left because we wanted to become professional writers and to live off of our writing And Guiana, though. I love Guiana dearly had no publishing house And there was no way you could make a living as a writer. So England You know Guiana was a British colony seem the very, you know the obvious choice and this particular poem I think touches on a variety of feelings in in a psychic way like, you know displacement and your longing for home At the same time, you know, you know, you need to be here to be able to make a living And I guess when I first came here nearly four to four years ago It wasn't with in my I didn't have in mind even staying in England. I didn't you know, I just came I just followed John And I came here and I felt, you know, maybe I'll be here for a few years But I'm I'm still here and this particular poem was written a few years after coming When sometimes people might ask me are you going to go back home? Are you staying in England? so the poem tries to answer that question and a line in the poem Was inspired by the famous song by song Sam Koch where have I hung my hat? That's my home. So I use that line in this poem and it touches on our, you know need for Going where you know? Psychically we feel we can flourish and make a living. It's called wherever I hang. I Leave my people my land my home for reasons are Not too sure I Forsake the Sun and the hummingbird splendor and pick up my new world self and come to this place called England At first I feel in like I in dream The misty grayness Touching the walls to see if they are real They solid to the seam and the people pouring from the underground system like beans and When I look up to the sky, I see Lord Nelson high too high to lie and this so I Sending home photos of myself among the pigeons and the snow and this so I warding off the colds and this so little by little I Come to change my calypso ways Never visit it never visit in nobody before giving them clear warning and Waiting me turn in queue Now after all this time I still get accustomed to the English life But I'm still miss back home side to tell you the truth. I don't know really where I belong Yes divided to the ocean divided to the bone Wherever I hang my knickers. That's my Yeah, in a very complex way, but put humorously yeah You you do it with with great ease the sense of moving from one place to the next and it was a choice for you to come here Right to to move here so it wasn't a forced Migration as it were as it was for you era for instance because you came as a you you went to to to Trinidad as a child But I'm just touching on the different ways in which people moved I came here about 20 years ago and in my mind. It was also a choice And and Barbara you came as a as a as a student teacher But there's a backdrop of huge events that happened that we don't actually see when we're leaving So Grace did you feel like that you were part of a migration or did you feel like it was an individual choice that you were making? Yes, it felt like part of a greater migration because so many Caribbean people and people from Guyana have moved on You know, whether it's the USA Canada Different parts of the Caribbean or England So I think it's a kind of part of the restless type of spirit of Caribbean people that we have That you know, we go for one reason or another And we create a new home where we find ourselves and in terms we help to change the place that we're in through we you know You know contributing to the culture While at the same time we are changed as people by that culture and then in terms of diversity You know more and more faces In our case we live in Sussex and when we first moved there about three months after living in England We were like the only black faces or mixed race faces around but gradually you began to see more and more People also settling in Sussex so but at the same time it was a conscious individual choice of Because both of both myself and John worked at one of our national newspapers as journalists And so, you know, we had that background in any case and had already started writing Like poems and fiction. So when we came here, it was specifically to be Published and to develop as writers because we couldn't really do that in Guyana But I constantly go back because I still have a brother and a sister who lives back in Guyana Yeah, the coming and going I wonder because I you find yourself And there's a lot of one of your poems you write about How grounded you become here and the grounding becomes because of because you have a child and and that you sort of hear now Yeah, and then there's a point at which when you're at when you're sort of back home in your back home mind Yeah, where you're thinking actually Here too. Yes those moments I remember for me it was and it was I felt I felt like I was betraying South Africa when I did that It was when I read it wasn't in Johannesburg beautiful sunny day eating mangoes Mangoes with salt Barbara. You are my tribe. I I Was when I was missing the variety of tomatoes that you could get here And this was only because it was in the last 10 years or so not in the early 90s when I first came and I suddenly thought I'm a traitor because I'm Relinquishing something from home and missing something from here. Did it ever feel like that to you? Yes, and I think this little poem I'll read for you Quickly illustrates that because the last time I was home and it was about five years ago And I love bucks and spice mangoes. Yeah, very special Guyanese mango there. There's not a mango like like that I'm sure all the parts of the Caribbean have Mangoes and I think I had eaten and then she gave me a big mango and I think this Illustrates something of that because I do feel I have two homelands in a way when I'm in Guyana England becomes my home You know and when I'm here Guyana is my home and the wider Caribbean So it's simply called upland mango when last home Trying to recover Some of the bright light of my childhood days My sister threw me the sudden gift of a bucks and spice mango I Remember how I peeled and sliced that plump orb of sunshine Adding a sprinkling of salt The way I liked it as a child I Remember how she raised her eyes when I said I leave back for afters a slice Girl you can't finish one mango How could I have admitted that I had to save back space for the fruits of my other back home This rain and winter driven blighty where Summary strawberry and apple and my daughters all grow So it just shows this The complexity you know to me and as you said at times you feel a bit guilty you get to love the landscape You're in also like the Sussex landscape where I live The beautiful dunges and the white cliffs and you know you love that landscape But you feel almost as though as you say you're betraying your homeland a bit by Loving another place. Yeah, I'd like to carry and just a little bit longer with this and please We can answer each other yes If you if you want to add to this as well because the response of people from home to your being there I feel like they're slightly punitive, you know that they want to punish you slightly for leaving So my my brothers for instance taunt me about the weather here, you know like oh, it's so awful You know it's it's sunny here and all of that and sometimes I just feel like saying well listen We've got regular lights. Yeah, there's no water shedding, you know, I Feel it's really cool to do that But I had to I had to clap back at some point because I was made to feel so guilty about that. I want to ask you did Did you did you feel that way? I mean you can you know answer I'm finding so many parallels with Grace's experience Having left Trinidad in 1962 on actually independence day the 31st of August it wasn't planned like that independence was announced after I had bought My ticket, but I was coming here for a specific Period of time I was coming here for three or four years to do a degree On a government scholarship to go back home and teach Well, ten years later was when I finally went back when I was When I was made to go back or find Somehow the investment that the government had made in my further education to pay back my scholarship So I didn't have a real choice about going back and as Grace was saying you grow to love Your new place for all sorts of reasons I was at Aberystwyth at University and then later at Cardiff. I had got married to a fellow student And by then I had a small child who was as well as any child in Cardiff born in 1969 and We were very happy there. There was no reason for me to feel that I Belonged anywhere else There at that time, of course, there was no connection you had to go to a Red phone box to make an overseas call to speak to family back home So that the day-to-day connection that I now easily have with my scattered family And did not happen and it created a huge distance between My Trinidad life that I had left and the life in Wales that I was loving Yeah It's a good time. I think for us to hear a reading from you. Oh, okay I Do not start by saying as I should have how wonderful it is to be here. So I'm going to do that now It's appropriate actually that I am in this space for this for the last time I was in the UK several years ago and I was here to see the Windrush Exhibition so it's quite fitting that my return marks that Epic journey that you spoke about earlier Audrey And the book is called the stranger who was myself because part of the The person I am now arrived here after an epic journey of self Who I am now is not who I was always I Hope I have grown and I hope I have somewhat improved over time Like good wine, but um, so I'll tell you how awful I was sometime And this is about my Return to Aberystwyth after my first Christmas in the UK, which I spent in London with Trinidadian friends But going back to Abba was going back to my the world to which I had become accustomed. So here we go. I Went back to Abba and heard talk that the sea had frozen over Christmas The record for the lowest temperature in that part of Wales had been broken and Throughout Britain it turned out to be one of the bitterest winters on record. I Also found that a box for me had been delivered to Alexandra Hall Mommy had got a cardboard box maybe from the shop across the road and Packed it sealed it with tape around every edge and across every opening Then she wrapped it all in brown paper and Tape that up too It took a full ten minutes to open it and when I did for the first time in the more than four months of Gradually shedding my old life and Slowly adapting to the new space. I was young to back home and I sat on the floor and cried Mommy had sent black cake Sorely cure and poncha creme. I Could see her soaking the dried fruit in cherry brandy and rum in the big stoneware jar for months in advance for the cake tearing the red fleshy sepals from the prickly seed pods of sorrow and Steeping the sepals in rum to draw out the color and flavor straining it off to some weeks and bottling the headily cure Whipping a dozen eggs into a foam with a length of lime peel to cut the eggy smell and Adding to it condensed milk evaporated milk and rum for the punch of creme and Pouring the mixture into a rum bottle and corking it tight tight She'd wrapped each bottle in layers of newspapers Because it had a long way to go in the hold of a heaving ship and Packed them one by one in the box more newspapers crunched between the bottles She would have checked the date for the last parcel post to England and had got someone to drop her and the box To the post office Mommy hugging the box on her lap mommy thinking of me But unable to visualize what I looked like What I'd be wearing Where I'd be and what there looked like But maybe imagining my face my joy at receiving the reminders of home and proof of her love and her thoughtfulness I Pulled each bottle out of the box Unwrapped it the ruby red sorrily cure the creamy punch of creme. I open the tin and smell the black cake Then I put everything back in the box close the flaps push the box under my bed I didn't want to see it. I didn't want it to be seen a Cardboard box Begged from a grocery The brown paper wrapping the newspapers the badly cut or torn tape of different colors and kinds The address in ballpoint written in capitals Once then over again Though not exactly on the first letters and overwritten again to thicken the letters to make them more visible and a dress of seven lines Barbara Laffle room 60 Alexandra Hall University College of Wales Aberystwyth Wales United Kingdom if there had been more space I guess the next line would have read the world The things inside How could I explain the contents? when the idea of difference as a positive Wasn't on the horizon of a yet to be imagined imaginary When things not familiar was scorned Things foreign food foreign you had your nose at even European things to smell of garlic Was thought of as repulsive as smelling of bodily waste So how could I share? What had arrived my homemade fair with my friends It was true that everyone shared whatever they had brought from home after weekends away Welsh cakes victorious punch lover bread fudge, but those were their things things that already occupied cultural common ground a Place in conversation in books and films things you could compare my mother's victorious punch with yours My grandma's punch with yours. How would my mother's homemade fair? fit incredible a comparison with black cake in her old biscuit tin make with Christmas pudding of Christmas carols of Charles Dickens This was pudding lifted out of a steamer and veiled from its mesh bag to expose a light brown dome plump with reserve fruit Decorated on top with an artificial hollyberry and leaf cluster and placed in the center of a Royal Dalton Oval dish at whose side rests a purpose designed hooding slicing tool a little trouble like object one Edged serrated one smooth and next to it a jug of whipped cream or Brandy sauce in the case of punch a crème. How do I explain condensed milk? I was ashamed a Shamed of home of my mother's efforts which cost her so much But seemed so pitiful here That Christmas offering whose primitiveness I had shoved under the bed Nothing was up to the sophistication The civilization of what I thought I had merged into I Couldn't bear to think of where I had come from who I really was Could if others saw this box Be so easily So irrefutably exposed I Feel like I can barely breathe from that reading because I Imagine it's a process that so many people go through the process of othering yourself despising yourself and And The fact that from on the outside the outside doesn't care it demands it almost did you feel it demanded it? Or did you feel that or did you demand it of yourself? I don't know. I think that shame is something That victims take a victim's take upon themselves which is why Girls who are raped or boys who are raped Do not come forward and say it there's somehow feel that they are in some way culpable And and there is also in the Caribbean or there was when I was growing up not so now a Denial of Africanness of Africa being part of the heritage girls at school would say girls who look like me would say I'm Portuguese. I have Chinese. I have Indian But they were in me, but they won't say I have Africa in me because Africa was associate Associated not only with Backwardness, but it was associated with enslavement and if you were a slave for 400 years something has got to be wrong with you So that Africa was a space of denial and shame was our portion of People of African descent. So when we came to the mother country The mother country it always strikes me like the mother country. Yes We came with a sense of being part of this so that you learned to ape the habits of This country and to be ashamed of anything that was not like this So the Christmas pudding was the epitome of a Christmas vine fruit alcohol infused dessert and black cake was somehow inferior So it's a generational thing. I'm happy to say I know that my own children have a sense of being West Indian Harry be on which came to me much later. Mercifully. I'm living to tell the tale. Yeah Because you describe in essence being a stranger in a familiar land And and sort of denying all and when you went back though When I think it's your husband describes the house that you're going to move into as Exquisite. Yes, you look at him. It's like what are you talking about exactly? It was at the beginning of a reawakening of yourself Oh, but it was such a privilege actually to be allowed to see my space through Somebody else's eyes somebody whose position and privilege as being born British brought up in all of this Civilization and who came I think we should be like civilization. Yeah, thanks. Oh civilization and who came to Trinidad and was Absolutely blown away by the culture of Trinidad He used to work a town and country planning, which at the time was in two old buildings. I think there were American Air Force Hospital things in the center of town and at that time all stars see steel band had been displaced from Hellyard on Duke Street. I see Trinidad is not in man Okay, great had been displaced from there on to what was then called Marine Square and They used to practice during the day and he would leave his office Cross the road Just to listen to the steel band. No, I left home with steel band It was here some fellas playing pan kind of thing making a noise when I saw How transfigured he was I I Yeah, I took on and a priest he taught me through his alien eyes To love and appreciate my own home and it was like I said a real gift Yeah Here I must say you were a child when you were forcibly I'll say forcibly because children have no choice in these things taken from India and Brought to Trinidad. So you were a stranger in a strange land And you literally landed in a very very strange environment where as soon as your you and your grandmother come out of this At the airport your mother your grandmother was a very very formidable kind of woman Very formidable you will meet her. We know women like that all of us She commands some man some young man to come and fetch her bags and and she calls him I can't say that word without flinching and I know that there are people who can't hear the word without flinching She calls him the C word basically. Yeah, and and and he says we don't talk like that here, but I'll still help you I mean, I mean so immediately there's an introduction into this whole new world That's you don't understand and you're forced to be in tell us a little bit about how that Immediately catapults you into a world. You like how do you cope? How do you manage because you're a child? I? think And my father was in the Indian army so We were so used to going from place to place in India and because my mother's business is Muslim My father's Hindu the army was the only place Where we kind of belonged because we didn't really belong anywhere else in India because all the army officers They all spoke English instead of the 27 languages of India So we were so used to going from maybe the Himalayas and similar where there was snow Early around and we have peaches in winter and we skated to very Sweatering heat of madras or Bombay or to move to Delhi So we were used to different languages and we like people we were already kind of displaced because of how my parents married You know in post independence India, but one Muslim and a Hindu Of course my mother was disinherited because of that, but when we went to Trinidad. I thought we were going to America actually so so we My impression and I'm so happy. I went there as a child Because I didn't have any knowledge of the brutal history of slavery of indenture ship. So My feeling about hitting Trinidad and seeing that blast Coming out of the plane and seeing that light that Caribbean light and the first thing we saw and I'll read a little piece of that The light of the ocean it really really it gives me forth. I felt like I landed somewhere magical Read for us then So I'll read you a little bit as as we leave Bangalore, but I want to just say here that This is also a book a post-colonial book about privilege and it's about Trinidad The new world which in a sense is a magical world because it's strands of so many continents and we've left behind The old pecking orders So my grandmother from a very old India with very strict pecking orders now collides with the new world where I Guess in a sense Trinidadians have always had a very strong sense of our dignity And who we are as human beings So she collides with a housekeeper in Trinidad and that's what I'd like to read to you. Oh, yeah, that's an epic fight that Angel and I start crying as the piano is taken away by four men Leaving only the piano stool with the sheet music inside it Kaja hugs angel tears falling into angels dark hair her frail hands around angels waist Don't cry girls pop it angel. Don't cry only two days then we fly Only two days and we fly says angel in Barry Mummy's voice breaking free from Kaja She starts running her chubby fingers making piano playing movements in the air as she wades into the old brocade curtains from Majid castle that have been locked in a trunk since 1947 I'm surprised to see the tears in Barry Mummy's eyes when the eyes line up to say goodbye to us She hands them little envelopes with money. Don't worry. You can stay here. You'll get a monthly salary Just don't give it to your damn men Angel is shouting fairy dust fairy dust She's spinning in circles and the curtains watching which shrieking delight the brocade Disintegrate into bejeweled smoke as it's spread into the rooms and floors out of the windows Oh God mama's curtains falling apart in bits the last of Majid castle Mama papa all gone gone Our laughter smothers her whale as she draws our faces close to hers I can't tell if Barry Mummy is laughing or crying Blinded by the swirling ascending dust Briefly 17 rest house road is a goblet of electric blue light We're leaving rest house road for the airport our suitcases strapped on the top of the taxi We stare through the black window until the house is out of sight Barry Mummy looks straight ahead wearing oversized sunglasses She puts angel on her lap and says don't be sad darling. Everything will be the same when we return We're going on an adventure on an island. We will go to the seaside. Would you like that my darlings? Angel puts her thumb in her mouth We would go anywhere with Barry Mummy if she can leave 17 rest house rule behind So can we maybe finally we could be a proper family with all of us together Barry Mummy sings Just pop it in me and angel makes three Together we'll be in our sweet heaven In Bombay we stay at the Taj where the manager seemed to know Barry Mummy well Angel and I are open mouthed this at Barry Mummy in imposing black silk and pearls with her usual Crimson lipstick on exchange for cigarettes with a long holder Commanding even here amidst the gleaming marble floors high ceiling and unending stairwells She smokes crossing and uncrossing her legs Telling hovering livery berries bearers to heat her milk take this away bring that Crumpling fine linen as casually as if she did this every day One evening she tells a pianist she'd like to play and as if there was no one there no tourists No strangers in that plush Victorian tea room with the view of India gate and the ocean She plays some Bach always that Brandenburg concerto and closes with dr. Javago her eyes closed In India we'd heard that London was always damp with a cold that got into your bones. I Wanted to know how that felt But we landed in London to stifling heat Nothing like Bangalore cool all year round The streets looked ordered and bear the city as magical as a storybook Harrods big Ben the houses of Parliament the Thames Buckingham Palace Hyde Park the Victorian Albert Museum Barry Mummy points them out from the taxi in the day and at night when she takes us around the city I'm going to cut a little bit and move ahead to Tobago part The passengers on the plane from London to Port of Spain look to me like South Indians, but darker I'm confused questioning South Indian women have long plots coiled with oil and Jasmine They wear bright silk saris But these women have short hair and wear dresses. It's because they are frequent darling Barry mummy pronounces see their hair is so thick and curly like mine asks angel. No, there's is thicker Angel sets up her face as if she wants to cry, but Barry mummy's too distracted to comfort her So she puts her thumb in her mouth instead At Piaco Airport we walk out of the aircraft into a heat so powerful We're pushed backwards then the blast from the aircraft engines throws us forward into a furnace In the carousel area Barry mummy beckons to a dark thin young man of Indian descent to pick up our bags and carry them through she says That that word I mean Can you I don't know okay the convention take those bags? I've got no money to give you but my son-in-law is outside. He will pay you Nah, he says I'm not an attendant. I'm a medical student We don't use that word here madam Barry mummy looks confused. He helps us anyway We enter we enter a chaotic customs hall with a long raggedy queue Barry mummy goes straight up to the top of the queue, but the customs officer points for her to go back My granddaughters are very tired Everybody tired your Kia break the line go back Hmm people Throw us curious looks, but Barry mummy doesn't notice What did you say? I don't understand you look lady. Just go back the officer points to the long line But she waits beside him sighing until some kind people let us go to the front of the line The customs officer eyes her doubtfully you come for a holiday Absolutely not. I'm here to meet Colonel Vadenath. His daughters are my wards. Well, I'll call it what you want You know you can't stay for more than three months, right? Don't be important young man. I'm a guest in your country. He shrugs and lets us through on Our way out. She pushes past the crowds impatiently. Let me through the children are tired. Let me through please I'm relieved to see that he's deeply tanned handsome face in the crowd Coming towards us his white teeth glinting He gets us through formalities and takes us on to the tarmac where we climb into small helicopter a perk We take for granted the hot wind throwing grit in our eyes I'm exhilarated as we fly jumpily through faint wisps of candy floss clouds The sea is a slate grease gray slab of thrilling dangerous choppy water I'm going to move ahead to the part when the housekeeper comes The first housekeeper the first of many But I would do one give a brief description of what we saw in Tobago Angel and I follow Barry Mummy outside squinting at the glare of the already hot day at the curve of the bay We taste briny air and look around The back of our house faces the edge of a plateau that slopes into a guava orchard The front looks over a valley To our left on a vast expanse of long lawn dotted with hibiscus and bogan villa There are four cannons their muzzles neatly slotted into the wall pointed at the ocean Barry Mummy sounds like a general exploring territory. Look. We're on a fort. Come on. Let's go and look at the cannons She leads us off. I stroke the smooth black cannon and look at the dazzling ocean I've never seen anything this bright the sky the sea the air Barry Mummy reads the plaque This fort was built by Sir Thomas Hyslop and named after King George III in 1804 to secure the colonial territories from foreign invasions and prevent internal revolts from the slaves a Heavy woman approaches slowly Her floral dress whipping around her legs as she reaches the door. Mummy says. Oh, look, it's Bula. Thank God. You're here Bula breeds heavily by the front door where we are now congregated She looks Barry Mummy up and down then brushes past her with a mornin Enraged Barry Mummy opens her mouth to chastise her. Mummy whispers urgently in Urdu Don't say anything mother. She won't like it We look on aghast as Bula sits at the table and serves her self breakfast Barry Mummy says in Urdu to Mummy. This is unheard of for a servant in India Mummy says dry Lee. This is not India my dear Bula unaffected by our staring calmly sets about consuming half a loaf of bright white bread and butter Washing it down with a fizzy orange soft drink mint mixed with condensed milk. Oh God I Mummy approaches her tentatively sweat on her upper lip do what you can Cook something maybe dust after you've eaten vaguely gesturing towards the kitchen and our bedrooms Angel and I remain at the door staring until Bula finally rises from the table and begins the housework at a stately pace We should also say housework at a stately pace. Bula doesn't work Bula is no servant She says sharply for hours after Bula has gone I wonder how I should address her as I'm as scared of her as I am of Barry Mummy Something builds up in Barry Mummy and the Bula Wars begin Barry Mummy turns supervisor You haven't tucked in the lower sheet Bula sucks her teeth ignoring her but he mummy thunders at angel mommy and me following The following day as if Bula is not in the room, you know, she sweeps around the furniture instead of moving it You can't take shortcuts, you know This has no effect on Bula who sits down for a cup of tea and leaves the dirty dishes in the sink By mummy starts washing them with exaggerated slowness instead of being shamed Bula allows Barry Mummy to continue working Barry Mummy's voice turns increasingly Light and supercilious Would you mind awfully if you please sweeping beneath the bed? If you if you have time between your other important work, of course Come Bula responds coolly I go see if I have the time Come washing day Bula ruined several of Barry Mummy's cotton saris by immersing them in bleach My grandmother shoves them on the Bula's face. Thank you so much for putting these spots on my saris You'll want me to put spots on all? Bula responds and Just one more cup of But I just wanted to ask that It struck me struck me when you when you describe how you got off the plane and that baptism of fire It feels like you were you were purified of all the stuff that had happened in India because it wasn't a happy time for you either right because your Angel was next to God. Yes, you were sort of tolerated. Yeah, was this this new world this magical world Was it easy to embrace you as as a new way to be as well Absolutely amazing. I think Tobago gave me a kind of freedom that I never had in India and to see and as children You have no idea of race. So we had Mrs. Wheeler and Of African descent living next to us who became like a second mother. You had she saved your life She saved my life. You had the Filipino people. You had the Chinese you had you had the you know the I guess the local whites so it was literally All the strands of continents in one place where it didn't matter where you came from or who what what you what religion you were It was a new world where you could reinvent yourself. I Think for you because Barbara speaks of a slightly different experience of those different strands, right? And you did say it was a book about privilege so it's interesting to see all those different strands knitted together and to see all these experiences writ large on a very very large Platform In a huge world that was heaving and it seems like the world is only heaving now But the world has always been heaving clearly because we're all the flotsam and Jetsam of that world I'm so sorry that I was strictly forbidden from taking questions from the audience I apologize and I know that you've been Waiting and wondering is anybody ever gonna ask you if you've got any questions, but the writers will be here We unfortunately have to end because this time has flown by and I hope it's been as valuable and as wonderful and as Magical as it's been for me for you. Thank you so much