In May 2009, Cyclone Aila tore through the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, swallowing everything Safrat had built: her land, her livestock, her livelihood. What it left behind was not a choice but an ultimatum: stay and slowly disappear or cross the border into India.
The Undocumented follows Safrat and her two children, Nur and Nabeel, as they journey from the delta's edge to Kolkata, shedding names, faith and identities to survive. It is the story of a border crossed and an identity hidden, but also of a family struggling to remain together even as it fractures from within.
Drawn from thirteen years of fieldwork on the fringes of a Kolkata slum-years spent earning trust and reading silences-this book offers a rare and intimate account of why people leave their homes, how they cross over to a strange, unknown land and what it takes to build a life on the other side.
About the Author
NIDHI DUGAR KUNDALIA is a journalist and author whose work illuminates lives at the margins of power and privilege. Her previous books include The Lost Generation: Chronicling India s Dying Professions (2016) and White as Milk and Rice: Stories of India s Isolated Tribes (2020), both published by Penguin Random House India.
Over the years, Nidhi s reportage and essays have appeared in The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Open Magazine and Platform, among others. She has served as assistant editor of Kindle Magazine and as a features writer with Times of India, where she honed her commitment to long-form storytelling that centr
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