Lost at 15, Found at 50

Book excerpt: From Russia’s Iron Curtain to Burma’s Bamboo Curtain, Sikkim to South Korea, this biography follows the struggle of a young girl whose life was a cross-continental roller coaster ride that soared and plunged from one country to another. By the time she was 15, Ashwini Devare had lived in 5 countries. Born in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, her journey continued to the other side of the Cold War, to America, a Superpower mired in the Vietnam War. Sikkim, a forgotten mountain country tucked in the Himalayas became her next home, against the backdrop of a pro-democracy movement that would overthrow the monarchy. From Sikkim to Switzerland, where the challenges of assimilation in a deeply conservative country, left long-term scars on a young, impressionable mind. As a teenager in India during a turbulent time in the nation’s history, she witnessed the upheaval and anarchy that followed in the wake of the assassination of its prime minister. In South Korea, she attended college with US soldiers in the heart of a military complex, while student demonstrations convulsed the country. She was a spectator to the dawn of democracy that rose over the Land of the Rising Calm. From being an observer of historical political events to becoming a journalist, her globetrotting life that began in the Soviet Union culminates in the tropical foliage of Singapore.