Portrait of author in Chennai, India by Jayashree Sahithya
Hi, I’m Yamuna — cultural explorer, mother between worlds, and storyteller fascinated by ancestry, memory, and the stories we carry. Through personal essays, family histories, and journeys across cultures and generations, I trace the tangled threads of identity, belonging, and becoming.
What does it mean to inherit more than one culture? In this personal essay, I reflect on growing up between my Tamil and Scottish roots, the different worlds my parents passed down to me, and the assumptions that still shape who gets to claim a cultural identity. Inspired by Jassa Ahluwalia’s Both Not Half, I explore maternal inheritance, family history, migration, and the journey towards embracing every part of ourselves. Because being mixed-race doesn't mean being half of anything. It means being whole in more than one world.
For the season one finale of The Long Road Home, I sit down with musician, weaver, voice doula, and founder of Weaving Remembrance, Hanna Leigh.
We talk about the old ways of knowing that live in song, craft, ritual, and the hands of those who came before us. About listening for the whispers. About making things slowly, gathering in community, and finding our way back to something we may have never known we had lost.
Pushkar Mela, Rajasthan, 2010, 35mm
Falling in love with a city on the Bosphorus