Smrithi answered carefully. ‘I don’t know, kunj, we just haven’t been here long enough to know how people classify us.’ She tried to keep her response neutral. He was worried that in Australia, you were either Australian or you were a migrant.

The word ‘migrant’ held a sense of ‘other’ that made both of them uncomfortable. It delineated and excluded ownership or the right to an equal place in Australia. Names, categories, and words: they could be corrupted and weaponised.

‘In Britain, I was proud of being British and proud of being British Asian,’ he replied. ‘I just don’t see different ethnic groups accepted in the public space here. Politicians, television shows and journalists are pretty white with the occasional Indigenous person, Pacific Islander or Chinese. Diversity isn’t part of the national image—the prevailing concept is still white, even though a lot of faces we see are not. It makes me wonder what image of normal our children will absorb—how will that make them feel about themselves?’

There was nothing she could say. Ahalya would join the local public school soon, and Smrithi was disappointed to find that the only scripture classes offered were Anglicanism and Catholicism. Her children could either learn about Judeo-Christian culture; or they could learn how to colour in with all the other infidels.

She missed the British Asians of England. She missed George Alagiah and Mishal Husain from BBC World, even if their latest news was about the escalation of fighting in Sri Lanka, where the Tigers were cornered in the north.

She missed being lectured on human rights and the draconian state they lived in by Shami Chakrabarti, the strident British Asian leader of Liberty. She missed waiting jealously for the latest British Asian writer to emerge from East London via Oxbridge.

She even missed watching out for Prashanth’s brother, Praveen, who was an actor. He had represented the full versatility of the British Asian identity on television. He was a regular on East Enders, The Bill and Spooks. He had played a doctor, gangster, terrorist, corner-store owner and someone forced into an arranged marriage. Later in his career he had played the Every British Man, rather than the Every British Asian.

She thought there was scope for Praveen to be written into Home and Away. They really did need an Indian family to move to Summer Bay. She could see it now: the family would be called the Kumars. The Kumar parents would own the local convenience store, although the Kumar father would have been a doctor back in India. The Kumar daughter would be studying to be a doctor and have an illicit white surfie boyfriend. Whenever people would be injured on the beach, the eccentric but charming Grandma Kumar would rush out and sprinkle turmeric on the injury.