Rohan and Sharmilla

 For years, Sharmilla’s life had a specific rhythm, a familiar melody composed of her accounting job in San Fernando, Saturday market trips with her mother, and the comforting, spice-laden aroma of her own dhalpuri rotations. She was working on herself by taking online courses in finance, practicing mindfulness, consciously trying to soften her quick-to-defend nature. It was a quiet, personal evolution, a preparation for a horizon she couldn’t yet see.


Then came Rohan. He was a vision of everything new: a charismatic entrepreneur from Toronto, visiting family, his own ambitions as vibrant as the patterns on his shirt. Their connection was instant and profound. Love arrived not as a gentle tide, but as a wave, and with it, a proposal: a life with him in Canada.


The change was announced. The horizon shimmered. And fear, cold and sharp, instantly flooded in. It whispered of frozen winters, of leaving her family’s loud, loving chaos for the quiet of a foreign city, of trading her known competence for the terrifying title of “immigrant.” She saw the new horizon but feared the voyage.


One evening, as she anxiously rolled out dough for what felt like the hundredth time, her mother watched her. “Your hands making the bread, beti, but your mind in another country,” she said softly.

Sharmilla sighed, her knuckles white. “I’m scared, Mammy. What if I get over there and I’m… nothing? What if I can’t find a job? What if my life shrinks?”


Her mother took the rolling pin from her hands. “Sharmilla, you have been expanding your being for years. All those courses, all that patience you practiced. You weren’t just preparing for a better job here. You were preparing for a better life. There is no need to fear what is needed to expand your being. This man, this country… it is not a threat. It is the package your preparation has arrived in. Now, you just have to be open to learn.”


The words landed with the weight of truth. She had been building her ark; Rohan was simply the flood that would allow it to sail. She began to practice acceptance. She acknowledged her fear instead of fighting it. She separated the story from the facts: the fact was a new country and a loving partner; the story was that she would become “nothing.” She focused on what she could control: she signed up for a Canadian accounting standards webinar, started following Toronto food blogs to find familiar ingredients, and asked Rohan to teach her one new thing about his city each day.


The day she landed in Toronto, the air was crisp and unfamiliar. But as she unpacked her suitcase, the scent of turmeric and geera from a carefully wrapped bundle of her mother’s spices filled the new apartment. Rohan walked in, his smile as warm as the Trinidadian sun.

“Welcome home,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.


Sharmilla understood. Change had been the indicator, but her acceptance was the key. She had not left herself behind; she had brought every lesson, every skill, every ounce of her prepared being to this new shore. The love was real, the ambition was shared, and she was finally, openly, ready to learn.


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