A WORK-IN-PROGRESS NOVEL BY TAIJ KUMARIE MOTEELALL
Conflicting Karma is a historical fiction following a soul’s reincarnation across multiple generations, opening the world’s eyes to the Indo-Caribbean experience. From India and Guyana to New York City, we learn about South Asian Indentured laborers brought to work on British plantations (1838-1917) in the Caribbean after the abolition of African slavery, and their ensuing migration to the US, fleeing political upheaval and violence in their new homeland.
Conflicting Karma is rooted in South Asian spiritual traditions, namely Hinduism, a global gender justice movement to end sexual and intimate partner violence, and futurism. Rooted in the Black Arts Movement and Caribbean Arts movement, Conflicting Karma makes visible and asserts the identity of a people (Indo-Caribbeans) that are not widely known; and links artistic practice to self determination and liberation of historically oppressed groups. Finally, the book uplifts the Healing Justice framework and normalizes practices linked to this framework to usher in a culture shift where healing-- mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually-- returns us to wholeness.
"I envision Conflicting Karma being akin to what Alex Haley’s “Roots” was for Black Americans and beyond. To have our stories told so we can be seen, heard, and loved is already a lot. Yet, this book will go further, speaking to social movements leaders about the value of healing into right relationship with self, each other, and the natural world. We are traumatized people trying to create change without first changing ourselves."
-Taij Kumarie Moteelall
Meet Two Key Characters in Conflicting Karma
Sundari, daughter of a courtesan and Mughal king, was shunned and fled destitution in 1843 after being violated the day before her wedding. We meet her incarnation in NYC in 2003. Shakti is escaping her own violent relationship and is in search of her true self and true love. After losing the man she loved the most, her father, Shakti turned to spirituality as a guiding force. She opened up a portal to healing and is now being called back to reckon with the past and heal her lineages and future generations.
In this time traveling adventure, we get glimpses of other incarnations of Sundari over two centuries. Through Shakti, we witness the healing of ancestral karma, breaking of generational curses, paying off karmic debt, and true love.
“Our radical imagination is a tool for decolonization, for reclaiming our right to shape our lived reality.”
- Adrienne Maree Brown