When I first returned to Singapore after living in England for nine years, I travelled to Kuala Lumpur to visit my grandmother. We were close, but ours was not a relationship based on phone calls or letter writing, so I had a lot of catching up to do. Sitting in my grandparents living room in Jalan Air Panas in Setapak, I asked after her beloved younger sister, “How is Gou Yee?”

Gou Yee, or Dog Aunt, was her sister’s nickname. Tai Por, my paternal great-grandmother, had a mischievous sense of humour and bestowed members of the family with nonsense nicknames which stuck for life. My grandmother’s nickname was Ah Chit, Gou Yee’s husband’s nickname was Dalalat. Don’t even ask what that means, no one knows.

My grandmother shrugged, and answered breezily, “She has emigrated.”

This took me by surprise. Gou Yee was KL through and through, I couldn’t imagine her or Dalalat ever leaving town, let alone emigrating.

“Really? Where to?”

My grandmother smiled enigmatically and pointed with her eyes, heavenward.

Ever since that conversation with my grandmother, I have taken consolation from the knowledge that death and emigration are one and the same thing. As an émigré, I know every departure to be a little death, and every arrival to be a fresh start, a little rebirth, even if the rebirth can be traumatic. The older I get, the more I understand this to be true. 

Lying in bed one morning, I remembered my grandmother’s words and wondered how many of us have had to leave for one reason or another? Enough to make a city? Not one defined by borders or geography, but one defined by the displacement of its citizens. What would you call this city? How would you describe it? 

Thinking of this, the seeds of three stories came to me that morning, three different sides of the city in my head. 

Over the next decade or so, I worked on the stories, one after another, or sometimes at the same time, sometimes putting one down and going back to the other. Taking my boys to karate or swimming lessons, I would sit at the back of the hall with an exercise book and write. 

One of the three stories is my own family story. Piecing together the shards of what happened to us was the most difficult of all to write. After decades, we are still learning how to talk about it. 

I call my city, Diaspura. Pura is Sanskrit and Malay for city or town. 

Come on in, I’ll put the kettle on. Let me show you around.