When I was 10 months old, my parents bought tickets to escape Vietnam on an overcrowded fishing vessel with 363 people onboard. It was really scary for them because they had heard many stories of boats capsizing, and of pirates. They had got married just before the...
My dad was a Muslim and Mum was a Hindu. They had a love marriage, which was almost unheard of in India back in the seventies. Due to religious discrimination, it was a challenging marriage, not supported by either of their families, and they were quite cognizant of...
My father was a freedom fighter against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. When I was 3, he sent my mother and us kids to Pakistan to give us a better life. As a result, I grew up in Pakistan, but visited my father in Afghanistan every few months. In that time, he...
When I was 15, my family moved from Mumbai to the Gold Coast for my dad’s business. At first, it was a massive culture shock. But I had always been a very social person, so I just decided to dive in and give everything my best shot. Many people said it would be...
Life in Caracas was stressful. Everybody had guns. I was robbed at gunpoint a few times. We used to carry dummy mobile phones to give to thieves in the traffic. My father and I were even ‘express-kidnapped’ by three guys once, who took us to the ATM to empty our...
Two weeks after I got a job in a chicken shop in Bronte, this Canadian guy with bright blue hair came in, and we got to chatting. He asked if I wanted to stay in Australia, and I told him I loved it but that I needed a boyfriend to stay! Jokingly, I asked him if he...
