Asian - Other

‘Daddy, do we live in Guyana?’

I was four years old, standing by the window of our tiny, terraced home in South London, when the need to clarify our geographical location arose.

I don’t actually remember my late father’s response, but he referred to his homeland frequently and with great affection. Coupled with his vivacious storytelling style, this recurrent theme became the source of my confusion, leading me to wonder whether Mitcham formed part of the Caribbean.

A lack of clarity continued as I grew older, this time, outside of home. Mentioning my parents’ roots tended to result in a perplexed expression and something along the lines of ‘Er…you don’t look West Indian’. Likewise, when I got to know children whose parents were born in South Asian countries, such as India or Pakistan, they looked exactly like me, but I quickly noticed differences between my Indo-Caribbean family culture and theirs. For one thing, whilst we both ate ‘curries’, and whilst they were equally delicious, they tasted worlds apart.

I have never visited Guyana, but I did visit Trinidad, my mother’s country of origin, at the ages of seven and fifteen. Sadly, despite the beauty of the landscape, the warmth of my new-found family members and its fantastic food, the intense heat and humidity, coupled with the epic proportions of its insect population, made it impossible for me to feel a connection. Interestingly, despite the stark contrast, my mother developed a strong affinity for her new British life and embraced its culture. My father did also, but his love for Guyana was matched by a love for India. Growing up, we were surrounded by images of Hindu gods and the smell of incense. We regularly watched Bollywood films with him - with subtitles, if we were lucky, since our Hindi only extended to counting up to ten. And we witnessed his dedicated efforts to teach himself the harmonium, Hindi and Sanskrit.

However, it was only in adulthood that I came to understand my family’s connection to these two continents, and my parents’ great-grandparents’ journey between them. I learnt how they had arrived as indentured labourers, having been brought to the Caribbean from India by the British, during the colonial period spanning the mid-19th to early 20th century. In turn, my parents’ arrival to the UK in the late sixties marked the last wave of the Windrush generation, during which time citizens from former British colonies were encouraged to immigrate and fill job shortages arising from the end of the Second World War.

Once I entered the world of work and started applying for jobs, I got used to ticking ‘Asian - Other’. Whenever I was asked to specify, I would write ‘West Indian Indian’, jokingly referring to myself as a ‘Wiindian’ to friends. It is only later that I came to know the term ‘Indo-Caribbean’. And it is only through writing this piece that I have reflected on the category of ‘Asian – Other’, linking it to how I perceive my heritage. The ‘Other’ feels like the part of me I carry within that doesn’t fully know where I come from. A disjointed feeling that is difficult to put into words. My family has no real knowledge of where in India we came from, nor who our ancestors there were. The connection has been lost.

Yet, there are moments when I feel a real sense of connection to the Indian aspect of my identity, beginning in childhood when my father would sing devotional songs around the house. It was as though the air became infused with a divine form of nourishment, and I felt myself connected to something much greater than my small physical self. I have come to associate this with the mystical, introspective side of my nature that is drawn to the spiritual and philosophical. By contrast, I associate my Caribbean side with the more earthy, relaxed, playful tone of a recent Can You C Me cancer conference run by the vibrant Croydon BME Forum team, which I left feeling joyful, my belly full of delicious West Indian food, listening to calypso songs all the way home.

And so, despite being conscious of knowledge gaps, I have over the years become aware that these ‘voids’ can, entirely unexpectedly, become filled with feeling. The effect of this is always deeply healing.

My passion for the psychological, particularly branches that foreground the unconscious and link it to the social sphere, has led me to see how, as humans, we all have multiple identities. There are parts of ourselves that may not always easily fit together, or that may not always feel entirely known to us, but that can over time be brought together. Certainly, this has been my experience in relation to my ethnic, but also my other, identities, leading to a greater sense of inner wholeness.

Unity in diversity, one might say.

In this vein, I am reminded of my mother, who came to England to train as a nurse and worked in the NHS for many years. Her experience, including her dedication and compassion, had a profound effect on me and shaped the role I wished to play in the world. Having myself worked in the NHS for many years, specifically at the Royal Marsden, a cancer hospital, I have come to appreciate just how beautifully diverse it is, both in terms of its workforce and the population it serves. After a long period in clinical trials research, followed by a three-year return to the arts sector, I now work across research-related EDI and PPI/E (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement) roles, whose aims are closely aligned with this aspect. Bringing separate strands together is a feature of creativity; as an artist-producer with an interest in collaborative creative health projects, I feel as though I have found a good home for mine.

The NHS is a microcosm - a vast system comprised of different parts that come together, in service to the nation’s health.

Unity in diversity, one might say.

Thank you for reading.

This is adapted from a blog post written for The Royal Marsden staff intranet, in celebration of its South Asian Heritage Month in July 2026 under the theme ‘Unity in Diversity’.