What's in a name

What’s in a name?

Not what I’m called, not my first name, Saz (a nickname) or my surname, Vora, but what people want to classify me as.

I’m often asked where I came from?

You’d think that was simple to answer, but it’s complicated. My parents are from Gujarat, India, and when you look at their passports, both were born in what is now known as India, before partition. However, after partition 75 years ago my father and his parents migrated to Tanzania, East Africa. To provide ancillary services, shop owners, tailors, cobblers, barbers, and everything else needed for families to settle in another country.

I was born there when Tanzania was called Tanganyika, part of the British East Africa Protectorate, and there are many Indian origin people whose families settled in East Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. 

And we're back to what’s in a name.

I’ve identified as a British Asian - used for a long time to put anyone from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia & Korea. Our families didn’t originate from the Afro-Caribbean or African communities, we didn’t have the racial features, at least we weren’t called coloured.

The British government classification BAME was introduced in 1991 and comprises all Mixed, Asian, Black and Other (non white) ethnicities. There are so many reasons why this should never ever be used. Non-White, would we classify White people as Non-Black and the word Black has too much of connotation to racial classification. How many Black people do you know who are actually blacked skinned?

Recently the word South Asian, East Asian, and South East Asians has emerged from across the pond. In the USA South Asians are people whose families came from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. East Asians came from China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia & Korea. South East Asians is anyone who came from the east of China and Japan from Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei.

So should I call myself East African Asian, or should I call myself East African South Asian?

Then there’s the South Asian Diaspora, the word used for displaced people, which is why I write about my experience, as someone whose family are from India and have links, but didn’t go back regularly to visit parents, every summer.

This month is South Asian Heritage Month in the UK, a series of events, exhibitions to celebrate the life of South Asians in the United Kingdom and there is a unique Uganda 50 strand that looks at people like me, who came from the diaspora to make the United Kingdom their home.

Writing Life

A word after a word after a word is power.

Margaret Atwood

This year has been a tough one for me, and I won't dwell on the frustrations I expressed in my last newsletter.

Writing is hard, very very hard.

Writing is frustrating.

Writing is exhilarating.

Writing is hard

I am a plotter. I often wake up with an idea for a story to create an outline, knowing how I want to begin my story and how my story should end. And the next university series has had many rewrites to get to where I am with it. Still editing, still chopping and changing. The idea for the three sets of duet came when I was writing my debut duet. My Heart Sings Your Song and Where Have We Come. I’m still confident that the story needs to be told, that Sonali and Deepak need to be heard, only I’ve  been ruthless with it, chopped scenes, rewritten opening paragraphs. I think I might be slightly mad to want to delete, delete, delete until the screen is white and not get one word that I’m happy to include in the book. Writing isn’t supposed to be easy.

Writing is frustrating.

I set myself unrealistic expectations, the frustration gnaws like a dog gnawing on a bone, except this particular bone is attached to your body and it's painful.

Frustration festers and then you don’t spend as much time writing stories and more time procrastinating and avoiding the inevitable. 

Writing is exhilarating

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. Anaïs Nin

I came across this and often as a writer you do taste life when an overheard conversation, an article, something shared on social media leads you to an idea that becomes a full blown short story with characters, dialogues and scenes. Your character starts talking to you. I did say writer’s are slightly mad, and you have to finish it and share it with your cheerleading team, who get to see my work before anyone else does.

True Love Again - serialisation, a short novella one chapter at a time.

I was inspired by Lady Whistledown, from Bridgerton, to create a novella in parts. Did you know that many of the early Victorian writers, most famously Charles Dickens, serialised their novels? Specially targeted to middle class readers to read in installments. So dear reader, this new standalone is by subscription to my newsletter, every month you’ll get unique access to the next chapter of the story via a special password. Very Whistledown indeed.