The Last Journey
An interactive narrative shedding light on the Indian Covid Crisis.

My interactive narrative, titled The Last Journey, details the struggles of a first generation Indian-American immigrant through the current India Covid crisis. It does this through exploring themes of separation, powerlessness, capitalism, corruption, and time.

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This is a deeply personal story to me and my family, as in the recent weeks I lost my Great Uncle (my father lost his Uncle; and my grandmother lost her brother-in-law) to the mishandled Covid crisis. This was an unnecessary and unexpected loss that was caused by forces out of our control -- such as corrupt governing, poor leadership, and rampant sickness. 

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While we were fortunate to have some options and resources in the form of time and money, at the end of the day they were no match against these forces at play. I tried to mirror this feeling of protagonist powerlessness through my choice design -- giving the protagonist agency, but not ultimate power nor heroism, as discussed by Meg Jayanth in “Forget Protagonists”. In the end, I do this through the ticking time bomb that is the death of my Great Uncle, which no character has any control over. 

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The string of fake choices all lead to his death in the story, as the protagonist holds very little power over the situation -- being both oceans away and disconnected in time and even other small cultural separations -- such as work-life balance and voltage. I am able to explore both themes of immigrant assimilation into American culture and familial separation in this way. 

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I also go through the bureaucratic processes of the limited options we did have -- such as sending an oxygen concentrator through the mail. There are so many small choices that were made in the days leading up to my Great Uncle’s death -- things that one could see as trivial but then cause rumination in days following the loss of a life -- such as the repeated choice of picking up a phone call in time, or spending the extra money on express mail. There is this constant feeling of “what if” that accompanies a death that I hoped to get across as something like Covid intensifies so exponentially. I hoped that in using all of these little choices, the player could begin to feel the weight of a life and the powerlessness that is so indescribable in any other form but through all of these miniscule, administrative obstacles.

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I attempt to avoid cliches and stereotypes by adding in some information on the government’s role in the Covid crisis and the sheer size of India’s population. I do not go into any foreign aid, as this is something I see news outlets covering a lot. I do not believe that covering foreign aid really gets to the roots of the systemic issues India is currently facing. It also can lead to ideas of white saviorism which are far from what I am hoping to convey. In addition, aside from the trigger warning in the beginning of the story, I removed all mentions of a specific country, even though facts on population size probably give it away. My goal with this is to try and allow the player to step into the shoes of an Indian immigrant without allowing any preconceived notions and stereotypes the player holds of India to be a part of the narrative experience. I want the piece to be as relatable as possible and focused on the humanity at stake. This is also why I chose to place the story in second person.

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Lastly, this story conveys a different perspective than the mass media. While the media is focusing largely on the Indian population in India and using both pathos of scenes on the ground and a broader international perspective, it is rare I see stories of Indian-American experiences documented in the news media currently. I hope this story will allow all to have a glimpse into what this crisis is really like for another subsection of Indians far from India and show that there is nuance in Indian lives and experiences.