Between the Lines with Suzanne Heywood

In an exclusive conversation with HarperBroadcast, Suzanne Heywood talks about breaking free from her childhood trauma.

Heywood’s childhood is read as a tale of resilience by millions of students in India in “We’re Not Afraid to Die… if We Can All Be Together”—prescribed by Central Board of Secondary Education. In the essay, Heywood’s story is never presented—how she struggled to find normalcy due to her parents’ forced ambitions and the horrors she faced on their 10-year voyage across the world.

A moving, eloquent memoir about undoing these traumas. Wavewalker is Heywood’s attempt at recapturing the power and agency over her own life and narrative.

Q. As children, our realities and perceptions of the world are directly informed by our parents and their values. In a country like India, these values are even more sacrosanct. We know that your book is an attempt to break free from the impositions made on your life by your parents. Please tell us about the arduous process of writing Wavewalker—from revisiting unpleasant experiences and memories from your childhood to documenting them for the world to access in your book.

Suzanne Heywood: I grew up trapped on a boat with my parents for a decade. That means that my realities and perceptions were very much informed by my parents since I had few other adults in my life. One of the interesting things about my experience is how, as I grew older, I started to question some of these values. This was a very difficult thing to do in a very isolated world. However, some of the values that my parents held, for example their belief that education was more important for a boy than a girl, that a girl should work below deck cooking and cleaning, while a boy should not be expected to do this, were thing that I began to challenge as I grew older.

Writing Wavewalker was then another new challenge because my parents have always told their own version of our time on Wavewalker. In their version, it was an adventure and it all worked out fine since my brother and I both managed to go to university. I knew that this story was incomplete since it missed out many challenging parts of my childhood, like the lack of education (I was unable to go to normal school), the isolation (I was unable to have friendships), the physical risks (I was badly injured in a shipwreck), and my mother’s very unpleasant behaviour to me after I became a teenager.

It took me a long time to get ready to tell my story because I knew that when I did so I would be challenging my parents’ version of our story. However, when my children became the same age as I was when I really struggled on Wavewalker I realised that I could no longer excuse the decisions they had made, and I no longer felt an obligation to remain silent. For me it has been important to tell the truth about my past and in doing so to start a debate about the rights of parents and the rights of children and the power that education has to change a life, even under the most difficult circumstances.

Q. How has this experience of documenting your childhood helped you to process the past?

SH: I did not write Wavewalker to help me process the past. In fact when I started to write Wavewalker I don’t think I understood that I needed to process the past – I just needed to tell an incredible story that had happened to me as well and as honestly as I could. However, when I started writing Wavewalker, and went back to my diaries and to interview many of those who were involved in this story, I was forced to confront many things that I had tried to forget. While that was difficult at times, in the end it has been hugely helpful. I now understand my childhood, and I understand how it has made me the person I am today.

SH: My father’s account is very much a traditional male-dominated “hero’s account’ of our shipwreck. In his version of our story, we are very unlucky to be hit by an enormous wave in the middle of the Indian Ocean and through his actions we are able to find safely on a small island.

My story is written from the perspective of a small child who was on that boat during that shipwreck (and for many years afterwards). It raises many questions that my father’s article does not cover. For example, when people read about my voyage many ask why my father decided to sail around the world with two tiny children on board a boat in the first place – it was not an accident that were were in the South Indian Ocean when we were shipwrecked, it was a decision that he had taken. In addition my story also shows that we were sailing the ‘wrong way’ across that ocean because we were following Captain Cook, which was another choice made by my father, and one which made our voyage much more dangerous. Finally I also reveal that we were sailing only with two novice crew because my parents had fallen out with our one experienced crew member, which again made our situation far more dangerous.

With these facts known, it is interesting to revisit the ‘hero’s account’ of our accident, which has been taught for so many years in Indian schools. After the accident happened, my father was indeed very effective at trying to patch over the hole in our deck and finding an island. But we were only there in the first place because of decisions that he had taken, which put all of our lives in danger.

My book does indeed go on to explore the increasing issues within the family as our voyage continued for many years. My parents had very gendered views in relation to their children, expecting me to work down below on board for many hours each day. I found life trapped on Wavewalker increasingly challenging as time went on, despite the fact that, on the surface, our world looked idyllic – after all we were sailing on a beautiful boat around the world. But the reality was that I had to fight to educate myself, could not have friends and was very poorly treated by my mother. In addition, conditions on board were very challenging, as I only had a single bunk, had to share a cabin with our crew and had no space and little time to study.

Q. In the book, you write about how education was the only way for you to grow out of the shadow of your parents and the experiences on the Wavewalker. You also argue for a deep philosophical and emotional education for children from an early age. How has your own journey as a learner and academic been?

SH: I realized when I was around 12 years old, and we had been sailing for 5 years, that I had to try to get an education and that I could not rely on my parents to let me have that. Although they stated that they cared about education, they never prioritized it. I strongly believe that all children deserve access to an education because education can change your life. For me, educating myself (which is what I had to do in the end) enabled me to escape from Wavewalker to university and from there to a successful career.

Q. How do you think that the formative conditioning in our childhood affects our emotional health and decision-making as grown-ups?

SH: I have been looking into the research on this as I find this issue fascinating. What the evidence seems to show (for example this was shown by a very long study with children in Hawaii, who had very difficult childhoods and were followed until they were 40 years old) is that most children who have very poor experiences as a child are affected by that – their life chances, for example their chance of having a good and stable career and relationships, are far worse. However, about ⅓ of the children managed to escape this trap – despite the very poor experience they go on to have healthy lives. Those children were able to find other role models outside of their family (as I did with some of our crew) and they find a purpose (which for me was education). So I think that the formative conditioning in our childhood absolutely affects people as grown-ups, but it is possible to escape from that to create a much more emotionally healthy life.

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