“I wanted to show the faces of these migrant workers, their struggles to breathe, and their undignified deaths”: In conversation with Puja Changoiwala

Abstract

ABSTRACT Journalist and author Puja Changoiwala has been critically acclaimed for her passionate writings on crime and social issues across India, such as gender discrimination and poverty. Her debut novel, Homebound (2021), details the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indian society, which saw the largest exodus of people since Partition, the majority of whom were from India’s poorest regions. In the book, Changoiwala tells the stories of Indian migrant labourers, showing how years of exploitation converged in a single moment of humanitarian crisis and homelessness. In this interview, Changoiwala talks about her experience as a journalist and an author in unveiling the atrocious realities of migrant life in front of a largely complacent nation and world. The discussion highlights Changoiwala’s reflections upon the conveniently neglected history of oppression that has contributed to the silencing of these marginalized populations, and her call for an awareness of such discrimination through her fiction.