There is a sense of displacement that has been a constant feature in Priya Darshini's life, since she started spreading her roots across cities and continents like a banyan tree spreading its roots wide under the ground. The musician was born in Chennai, before moving to Puducherry for a few years in her early childhood. Her family then shifted to Goregaon in Mumbai, where she finished her schooling and college life. After that, she packed her bags for New York in 2005 to study filmmaking. This was followed by a period of back and forth between the US and India — with a defining period in Nashville and even a brief working stint in London — before Darshini finally settled in NYC in 2013. Her life, till then, had been more like the queen piece on a chessboard that can travel across all squares, rather than a pawn that can move only in a single straight line.

It is this sense of displacement that has informed Periphery, her debut record that achieved no less than a Grammy nomination in the Best New Age Album category this week. "The only way to create music was to be true to myself. That became my way of exploring my identity. What is 'home' to someone like me? Is it a concept, is it a place? What is it? It started showing in my music when I started asking these questions," Darshini tells us over the phone from The Big Apple.