This book is a memoir stitched from the author’s journeys across India, China and Southeast Asia. It carries the reader from the Bay of Bengal to Yangtze River to the straits of Malacca. It explores quest and connections: The giant wild goose pagoda in Xian to the grottoes of Longmen, the temples of Shaolin to the shrines of Bali. Along the way appear house helpers and local markets, lion and tiger dancers, ancestor worship and ghost appeasement, masks and kites, pets and puppets.
Some stories move between grief and laughter as the author encounters food and language issues which she sorts out over a period, thus making the everyday life luminous. Her visits to various museums across Asia not only provides a sincere source of information about a country’s cultural past, it ferments the tapestry of history in it’s true sense while a personal loss propels her to embark on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash which teaches her a few life lessons.
Living in India and China and discovering the two countries in Malaysia emerge as the memoir’s beating heart. Shanghai’s riverfront glitters with neon, yet alleyways still carry the smell of steamed buns and whisper of karma chants. In Kuala Lumpur, red lanterns hang beside flower rangoli and the rhythm of Indian and Chinese festivals pulse through local streets and malls. For the author, these are not just images of travel but layered encounters-fragments of history, migration and celebration that speak to the ways cultures echo and entwine.
At its heart, Colours Red, Green and Everything In-between is about migration and adaptation, about carrying pieces of India into China and Malaysia, and recognising the essence of home in unfamiliar places.