The Red Thread

One family left Uganda with a suitcase each and £50 between them. What they carried with them could not be packed.

I was twelve when Idi Amin expelled Uganda's Asian population and my family left our home in Entebbe. We came to Britain and began again in Luton. At the centre of that new life was my mum, Indira: a woman who had married at fifteen, endured years of unhappiness, and still found the strength and determination to build a different future for her daughters.

The Red Thread is our story, but it is also about the connections that run through all our lives. In the Hindu tradition, a rakhi is a sacred thread tied as a symbol of love, protection and connection. For me, that thread reaches further. It is in family and friendship, in the people who arrive just when we need them, in the signs we notice, and in those strange moments of synchronicity that remind us that perhaps nothing happens entirely by accident.

Through memories of Uganda, India and Britain, I share the life lessons my mum taught me and those I have had to learn for myself: gratitude, resilience, forgiveness, self-belief, kindness and the courage to change. There is sadness here, but also humour, celebrations, friendships, faith and the ordinary moments that make a life.

If you have ever had to begin again, wondered whether you were strong enough to change your life, or wanted to preserve the stories of the people who came before you, I hope you will find something of yourself in these pages. Above all, remember this: trust the process. It always works out for the better.