Lindsay Pereira’s Super explores what people are willing to leave behind in pursuit of dignity, stability, and hope

Migration stories are often reduced to numbers, opportunities, and success narratives. But beneath every statistic is a deeply personal emotional reality shaped by identity, displacement, family expectations, economic pressure, and the idea of home itself. In a recent conversation around his novel Super, author Lindsay Pereira reflected on the emotional and political layers behind migration, particularly among Punjabi youth moving abroad in search of a better future.

What emerged from the discussion was not just a conversation about Canada, Punjab, or economic migration, but a broader examination of what it means to leave home, build a life elsewhere, and continue carrying the emotional weight of where you came from.

The Story Behind The Novel

The origins of Super came from a deeply unsettling statistic Lindsay Pereira encountered while researching Indian migration to Canada. A funeral home in Toronto had reportedly handled the repatriation of several young Indians who had died abroad and whose bodies were being sent back to Punjab.

In 2019, the number of bodies sent home was around eight or nine. By 2022, that number had increased dramatically to 33.

To the author, this did not feel like an isolated tragedy. It felt like a growing crisis that very few people were truly paying attention to.

“When you have young Indians dying in another country, and the numbers keep increasing over a period of five or six years, there is clearly some sort of crisis happening that isn’t being spoken about,” he explained.

That realisation became the emotional starting point for the novel. Instead of approaching migration through headlines or political debates, he wanted to humanise the issue and understand what pushes young people to leave home despite the risks involved.

Migration as Aspiration and Survival

One of the central themes of the book is aspiration going beyond glamour and materialising as a form of survival.

The author describes migration from Punjab largely as economic migration. Farming, once capable of sustaining families for generations, no longer provides the stability it once did. At the same time, unemployment and rising economic pressure leave many young people feeling trapped.

During his research, he came across reports suggesting that the average farming family in Punjab could take up to 74 years to repay the loans used to send a child abroad.

“That’s a staggering figure,” he said. “If someone is taking that kind of leap of faith and risking so much, it becomes more than aspiration.”

Migration in this context is not simply about ambition or luxury. It is about people believing there is no future available to them in the place they were born.

That desperation becomes one of the novel’s most powerful emotional undercurrents.

The Emotional Pull of Home

Despite the desire to leave, the novel repeatedly returns to the emotional gravity of home.

One line in particular stood out during the discussion—the idea that Jalandhar makes people want to leave while still holding onto them emotionally.

Lindsay believes this contradiction exists in almost every migration story.

“There’s always a part of you that remains Indian,” he explained. “That never changes.”

He describes home not just as a physical place, but as identity itself. Language, food, memory, community, and familiarity shape people in ways they often only understand once they leave.

When migrants move to places where people do not speak, think, or live like they do, they begin to experience a deeper sense of emotional displacement.

“It’s more than nostalgia,” he said. “There’s a very real sense of loss.”

The novel therefore treats migration not simply as movement between countries, but as an ongoing psychological negotiation between identity and survival.

Researching A Reality He Didn’t Grow Up In

Interestingly, Pereira himself was born and raised in Bombay and admitted he initially felt anxious about writing a story centred around Punjabi migration without directly belonging to that world.

To bridge that gap, he immersed himself in extensive research.

He studied migration data, farming economics, reports from Punjabi community organisations in Canada, and the Labour Market Impact Assessment programme that enabled many workers to migrate abroad. He also researched the economic slowdown in Punjab, the drug crisis, and the growing number of young Indians leaving the country.

The goal was not to turn the novel into nonfiction.

Instead, the research served as emotional architecture.

“I needed to understand their world deeply before I could write them honestly,” he explained.

That research-driven realism is perhaps why many readers, especially those familiar with Punjab, found the emotional details of the novel so authentic.

Human Dignity at the Centre

Another striking aspect of the conversation was the way the author spoke about his characters.

Although the novel explores migration, violence, economic systems, and politics, he repeatedly returned to one core idea: dignity.

The characters in the novel are not chasing extravagance or luxury.

“They are trying to access the bare minimum required for a dignified life,” he said.

For Sukpreet, that means building a stable home and future with someone he loves. For Maynard, it means basic survival, care, and stability.

This perspective shifts the conversation away from stereotypes about migrants chasing wealth and instead places the focus on very fundamental human needs of shelter, belonging, emotional security, and the ability to imagine a future.

Refusing Simplistic Morality

One of the novel’s most interesting creative choices is the inclusion of characters who initially appear deeply unsettling or difficult to sympathise with.

Lindsay intentionally resisted writing the story in purely moral or political binaries.

“I don’t think human behaviour is ever entirely black and white,” he explained.

Rather than labelling characters as simply good or bad, he wanted to understand how loneliness, failure, desperation, and abandonment shape human behaviour.

This refusal to simplify people allows the novel to feel emotionally honest.

It also reflects Lindsay’s background in journalism, where neutrality and observation often take precedence over judgment.

A Non-Linear Structure that Mirrors Reality

Structurally, the novel moves between timelines and geographies instead of unfolding in a traditional linear narrative.

Pereira described the book as a series of emotional snapshots. By forcing readers to connect different moments themselves, the story becomes more immersive and participatory.

“It allows the story to feel larger than its actual length because the reader participates in filling in the emotional spaces,” he explained.

The fragmented structure mirrors migration itself—memories interrupted by distance, identity shaped across countries, and emotional timelines that rarely move in a straight line.

Beyond Migration: A Story About Empathy

Ultimately, Lindsay Periera hopes readers leave the book with greater empathy.

For him, fiction functions almost like travel. Reading allows people to step into worlds they may never otherwise encounter, whether geographically, emotionally, or socially.

“I want readers to recognise that these stories and struggles exist within India too,” he said. At a time when conversations around migration are often reduced to policy, visas, and economics, the novel attempts something far more intimate.

It asks what people are willing to sacrifice for dignity, what happens when home becomes emotionally complicated, and why so many continue to leave despite everything they stand to lose.

In doing so, it transforms migration from a statistic into something profoundly human.