From The Latest Issue: The Cartography Of Belonging

In late March and early April, I found myself campaigning in the Kerala state Assembly elections—over 18 days, travelling across 12 districts for 59 UDF candidates, delivering the message that Kerala wants a change. I played the chenda with a Christian candidate, danced on stage with Muslim girls of the Vanitha Youth League, and started a day’s campaign outside a Hindu temple. In all of this, I found myself revelling in the cultural and social unity of a land that I had only returned to 17 years ago, when I left a three-decade career abroad to enter Indian politics in the place I now proudly regard, four victories later, as “my own constituency,” Thiruvananthapuram.