Rethinking the concepts of migration and diaspora, Ranajit Guha focuses on the loss of one’s past and identity resulting from the temporal and spatial distortions imposed by migration. In addition to discussing the migrant’s status at the initial departure, Guha reflects on the migrant’s experience within the host community in the intensity of the immediate present. Suddenly ruptured from the continuity of their own roots, disoriented and with no insights in an incomprehensible present that has no before nor after, migrants are expected to struggle to build themselves a future and a new identity.