The Beginning Story

My name is Jashodhara Sen, and I am the researcher and caretaker of this story repository. My grandmother carried history in her stories. Each time she shared an account of her life, she was not just recounting memories; she was performing them. Her immigration journey from Burma to India was stitched into our family’s imagination through anecdotes of displacement, resilience, and reinvention. Those stories passed down with care and emotion, planted the seed of my commitment to theatre and digital storytelling.

In 2017, I was an immigrant student in the United States. I found an opportunity to translate personal anecdotes into performative storytelling. This allowed me to start a collective archive. This archive provides a space for recounting memories in the most authentic and honest way. It enables South Asian women to reclaim visibility, authority, and connection in a culture that often renders them voiceless.

Through Leaving Home, Finding Home, I have created a space where the act of storytelling is both a personal ritual and public pedagogy.

Gouri Yerra’s reflection on her family’s cultural rifts is an example. These rifts occur between herself, her parents, and her American-born sister. Her reflection illuminates how layered diasporic identities are continually negotiated. Her story, like so many others, is not just about difference. It is about survival, empathy, and the need for dialogue across generations and borders. These narratives are curated digitally. They are expressed through sound, image, and movement. This mirrors Diana Taylor’s vision of performance as a living archive. It not only preserves the past but also imagines futures of solidarity and recognition. In this space, stories are not just told; they are embodied, witnessed, and transformed into acts of communal memory.