Author Kritika Arya has always struggled with the question, 'Where are you from?' The Indian expat, who spent her formative years in Dubai during the 90s, shares, 'If I said India, people didn’t think I sounded or behaved like an Indian. If I said Dubai, they would say ‘but you don’t look Arab or Dubaian’.' Born in Sharjah in 1991, Arya grappled with an identity crisis as a third culture kid, which eventually inspired her to write an autobiography titled 'Citizen by Descent,' published in 2023.

Born in the UAE, educated in the UK, and currently residing in India, Arya’s book is a compilation of personal essays that delve into themes of home, belonging, identity, mental health, and the emotional complexities faced by third culture individuals. Each chapter is enriched with illustrations by international artists, reflecting on specific aspects of her life in different homes across three countries.

'The UAE is a melting pot of cultures, where I was exposed to traditions, food, religions, and festivities from around the world. I am thankful for this diverse upbringing that made me quite worldly. However, growing up in the UAE was also very perplexing,' admits Arya. 'I was born in Sharjah and raised in Dubai, yet I held an Indian passport with a permanent address in India, a place I would only visit for a couple of months each year.'

In 1977, Arya’s father relocated to Dubai from Jaipur, India. Her parents married in 1983, and she was born nearly a decade later, following her two elder siblings. From kindergarten through her A levels, she attended Dubai Gem Private School in Oud Metha.

Over the years, Arya reveals that she experienced mixed emotions of feeling like an outsider, living on a resident visa and not being a citizen of any place. This sense of rootlessness intensified as she moved to the UK for college at 19 and later returned to India to work and live with her retired parents. In the span of a decade, she lived in eight homes across three countries, grappling with anxiety and struggling to find a sense of belonging.

It was during a bi-weekly therapy session in June 2020, amidst the pandemic, that the idea to write 'Citizen by Descent' took shape. 'I was mentally trapped in a toxic bubble back then. The world had shut down. I was struggling with my thoughts and emotions. I had no specific goals. All I wanted to do was write something for myself,' shares Arya. She began with an essay titled ‘Bubbling,’ an introspection on the toxicity in her life. Her elder sister Ritu appreciated the write-up and suggested she get it illustrated by their friend Mohannad Salim.

'The small pandemic project was intended to be one essay and a zine, but it didn’t end there,' Arya recalls. One essay led to another, and over three years, she wrote an autobiography with illustrations by 12 artists. The book features ten main essays, each centered around a specific part of a home she lived in across three countries, and each chapter also addresses her mental health at that time.

In the first chapter, ‘Home-Centred,’ set in Dubai when she was between six and seven, Arya writes about her family, her classmates who stopped talking to her, getting lost in a furniture store in Sharjah, and an incident where her head almost got stuck in the balusters of a staircase. These bittersweet childhood memories reveal insights about her close-knit family, her anxiety about the outside world, and her greatest fear of losing her parents.

In another essay titled ‘Rani from Dubai,’ Arya expresses her angst of not fitting in as a third culture kid. 'Deep down, I felt ashamed of whatever this version of me was. Not Indian enough, not Arab enough, not Dubaian enough. I was self-conscious of this amalgamation of culture. I didn't quite understand how to utilize it back then… I was something else, I sounded different. I acted differently. I was strange. I didn’t fit into a box, which is difficult for people when they’re trying to make fast judgements,' she writes.

'Who am I?' is a question everyone often asks themselves. For a third culture kid, the answer is complex and challenging. 'The feeling of not belonging anywhere, constantly having to adapt to new surroundings and struggling to form meaningful connections can be difficult and isolating. It's why the two constants in my life have always been my passport and my anxiety. They travel the world with me,' Arya reflects.

Through her memoir, Arya reveals several aspects of her life, including almost failing her first year of college, losing her first love, enduring an emotionally abusive relationship, facing gut health issues, having a debilitating phobia of lizards that made her move out of her flat in Mumbai, assisting her parents through their kidney surgeries, and battling her own anxiety and that of her pet dog’s. 'With the help of therapy, writing, and the unwavering support of my sister, I was able to process so many difficult moments in my life in such a creative way. I just wanted to be honest and let go of any lingering negative emotions. It’s ironic that in letting go, I essentially immortalized them by publishing a book,' shares Arya, who is currently a screenwriter, working remotely on a documentary, developing a film script, and a children's book.

While 'Citizen by Descent' is told through Arya’s definitive voice, it is aesthetically presented with vibrant illustrations interspersed throughout the chapters. After her initial collaboration with a friend for the first illustration, Arya partnered with several global artists, including Ichraq Bouzidi, Gaurav Ogale, Annette Fernando, Tanya Timble, Priyadarshini Kacker, and Hanifa Hameed, among others. 'The illustrations have presented different versions of me as the artist re-imagined me through a reader's lens,' Arya notes.

Creating her autobiography not only boosted her confidence but also gave her complete control over the writing and printing process. The journey was filled with numerous learnings, but the most profound one for Arya was the realization that building a perfect home is impossible and that it means different things to different people. In the epilogue of the book, she writes, 'The stories about homes are continually being written, which means it’s always evolving and redefining itself. Therefore, I’m taking the pressure off. I don’t need to know what my version is, and I have finally come to terms with this. The only thing I do know is that, if I have felt “home” even once, even for a split second, then I am bound to feel it again and again and again.'

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