April 13, 2021 I left Trinidad and Tobago on March 16, 2020, a few days before the borders were closed to citizens and visitors alike. I was on the verge of departing for a ten-day visit to India, at the invitation of the Indian government as a part of its Academic Visitors Programme for distinguished scholars. Three days before my planned departure, I cancelled my trip, with the blessings of the Indian High Commissioner of T&T, for fear that I might be trapped in India while the pandemic raged. I have not returned to my homeland since because of the lockdown of the national borders. I have been told that I, a citizen of T&T, must apply for permission to enter my own country. I have been reluctant to do so since it strikes me as being antithetical to everything that inheres in my rights as a citizen. A citizen does not apply for permission to return to the land in which he or she was born.