Why a Booktrail?
1990s: A portrayal of a British Indian childhood
The Painted Ocean
What you need to know before your trail
Shruti lives in England with her mother. Her father left when young and never came back. But life as home is tricky as her mum speaks little English and is fluent in only Hindi and Punjabi. This puts extra pressure on her from her family as alone and with few friends in the English community, she is pressurized to remarry.
Shruti meanwhile is finding school difficult – a bully is making her life a misery.
But then Meena comes on the scene and things change. They become fast friends and form a bond that lasts a lifetime. Meena then invites her on a family holiday to India. An adventure? A life changing time? More than she realises.
Travel Guide
1991: An stream of consciousness as to what it must be like to be a young girl on the cup os being a teenager and the difficulties of growing up in a broken family. Being torn between two religions, two cultures and two parents no longer together. Having to interpret constantly for her mother is difficult and acting as the go- between with the social worker. She says that she’s trapped inside whichever story the social worker decides to say.
Books make her think of things to cook, films on Channel 4 make her and her mother talk about the village where her mother grew up.
Fast forward to 1999
The story then switches to New Zealand and a plan to go to India. Plans that start to go awry. Plans that involve a bizarre journey that Shruti didn’t expect. And the surprise of the destination.
The time spent in India is a mixture of memories from her mothers stories and an awakening of sorts. She gets the sense that she’s headed into danger for the Indian adventure she was promised takes her to remote places, Meena steadily goes off the beaten track, off the rails.
They’re headed somewhere very distinct. No locations on the map here as ‘It’s not on a map – it’s a place not many people know of’
Where Next?
