Far away, on the eastern seaboard of Canada, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a young dentist stood at the window of his office and stared at the trees lining the sidewalk. It was summer, the air was mild, the sun shinning for a change. His long time friend and partner had just walked home to his wife, child and lunch.

Eight years earlier, Ananda had been a practising dentist in small town Dehradun. Unlike many of his friends he had never wanted to leave India. His ambition had always been to make lots of money, to look after his parents, to repay their investment in him of time, money, love, sacrifice and hope. When in one fell stroke his world changed, his uncle, settled in Canada for the last twenty years, called him to the bosom of the new world. Here is the future, this is a country that will help you let go of your grief; persuade you to become a new man. Ananda pushed by his sister, pulled by his uncle, responded to the call and landed in Halifax on the 15th of August, his country’s day of independence, as well as his own liberation from it. His uncle waiting to receive him at the small and dazzlingly empty airport remarked on this in a distant nostalgic way, as though long ago, the independence of his country too had meant something.

And so despite himself Ananda became an immigrant.