Notes

7. where did milk and honey begin?

i like to think milk and honey began the day i was born. the reason for this is that i take from my lifelong experiences for this collection. i take from a lot of pain i’ve experienced or my family has experienced. Or my community has experienced. Or the larger South Asian community and diaspora. an example of this is in the opening of my foreword:

“in 1992 i am born in a village called munak kalan in the state of punjab. right below kashmir in northern india. the month of october. barsaat—monsoon season.

accompanying my mother to the hospital is a long row of relatives. grandparents aunts sisters uncles brothers. missing from this bouquet of flowering faces is my father. he is at a friend’s apartment in delhi preparing to flee for canada as a refugee.

for my father opportunity and time align a month after i am born. he takes his chance. knowing if he does not leave now he will end up imprisoned like his friends. tortured. dead. or perhaps all three in that same sequence. for the sake of survival my family becomes a footnote in history. one of those tens of thousands of punjabi sikhs fleeing punjab because of genocide.”