Migration is embodied, in the meals we eat and the transnational lives we live. Over the last year in Malaysia, Indian migrant workers can be seen from the unlikeliest of places which we were not traditionally migrant sending areas especially in diaspora Malaysian Foodscapes in the Nasi Kandar- Mamak, or Tamizh Muslim eateries from Thanjavur to Karnal to Tripura to the outskirts of Kolkata.

I have also met folks from Panchkula in a Pakistani restaurant in Singapore. There are plantation workers from Bihar and UP as well as from West Bengal especially Muslim.

The presence of migrant workers in the diaspora, often is a sign of the economy at home, atleast for vulnerable communities. Food workers are often missing from the literature, the theorising often misses trends on the ground as academics spend more time in faculty clubs than with communities.

The photo is from Seremban in Malaysia, where I was served Madras Coffee by a young man from Haryana in India, who is an electrician by training.