Anush Nayak
This photograph holds a special place in my heart. Growing up in India, piracy was part of our informal economy of dreams. I remember saving my weekly pocket money—100 rupees in 2012—to buy pirated video games from a small shop down the lane. The DVDs, wrapped in glossy prints of heroes and worlds I longed to enter, felt like treasures. I’d tuck them under my shirt and sneak them home, heart racing, afraid yet thrilled.
Here in Kampala, seeing these familiar displays feels like meeting an echo from my past. The posters shimmer with aspiration—proof that stories travel farther than legality ever can.
And though I no longer condone piracy, I can’t help but smile at its innocent origins: a universal hunger to belong to worlds beyond our reach.
