I was born one humid July morning in 1956, in a village called Edakkad, nestled along the lush, salt-laced coast of Kannur district, Kerala. My earliest memories are of palm fronds whispering above our home, and the distant lull of the Arabian Sea, shaping my first dreams. School took me far from those gentle beginnings. I found myself in stiff uniforms and echoing halls of a British public school, once called King George Royal Indian Military College, later Bangalore Military School. There, I learned the strange mix of discipline and longing—how to stand tall, but also how to cherish what was left behind. What followed were years with multinational companies—Mettur Beardsell, Bakelite Hylam—names that became passports to new worlds. Each role opened a wider horizon; each city, a fresh language, a different sky. I traveled further than I had ever imagined, driven by a restless urge to see, to connect, to learn. Singapore became my crossroads, seven years charged with ambition and the delicate art of belonging. As Marketing Director for a German firm, I learned how business could be a bridge—not just between countries, but between human hearts. Later, I became a guide for American, Canadian, and Malaysian companies eager to find their footing in India, and I shared all I had come to know about my land. But China called with a song of its own. Ten years working in fiberglass and thermal insulation were about more than industry. China taught me patience, curiosity, resilience. There, in cities spilling into the sky and villages lost in mist, I discovered how much of myself could change, yet remain the same. In 2012, I came home—retiring not in spirit, but in geography, returning to Edakkad where the rain smelled the way memory does. Those years abroad were more than work—they became my story. And that story longed to be told. I found myself inspired to write: about the winding roads, the tea-house conversations, the silent moments of longing and hope that stitched my days abroad. My book is born from all these places, and the invisible threads that tie a soul, forever searching, to the world it loves.