I
was born in Sri Lanka on 2 February 1982. I was placed in a family in
Sweden and grew up in Falun.
My
parents are Bo Pettersson and Britt Marie Pettersson. I have an older
brother, Simon, and a younger sister, Dana. All three of us were
adopted from Sri Lanka. In our Swedish family, adoption was not one
unusual fact attached to one child. It was part of the household.
Sri
Lanka was the first point on my map. Falun was the second.
Falun
lies inland, among forests and long winters. Snow changes the town
without moving anything. Streets narrow. Sounds become softer. In
December, daylight is brief. In summer, the same place stays light
late into the evening.
That
was the climate around my childhood.
I
attended Britsarvsskolan for primary school. A school gives a child a
fixed place in the day: a desk, a timetable, a coat hanging in a
corridor. It also locates the child among other children. Names are
read from lists. Addresses are written on forms. Countries appear on
maps.
My
Swedish came first. It became the language of school, family and
ordinary life. English came later and became a professional language.
Between the two stood the fact of another country, the country where
I had been born.
At
home, there were five names: Bo, Britt Marie, Simon, Niklas and Dana.
Three of those names belonged to children born in Sri Lanka. We grew
up together in Falun.
I
continued to Lugnet gymnasium, where I studied social science with
economics. The subjects concerned how people organise a society:
money, institutions, decisions and the rules beneath daily life. They
gave names to systems that are usually noticed only when they fail.
Part
of my upper-secondary education took place somewhere far from Falun.
I spent one exchange year in Malaysia.
On
a map, Sweden and Malaysia are separated by much of Europe and Asia.
They are also separated by weather. Falun has frozen ground and
winter darkness. Malaysia has a tropical climate. The difference is
visible before anyone explains it. Clothes change. Buildings change.
The length of the day behaves differently.
Malaysia
was not Sri Lanka, but leaving Sweden altered the position from which
I looked at both Sweden and Asia. Until then, Sweden had been the
place where my family lived and where my schools stood. It was the
normal point from which distance was measured. Living in Malaysia
made Sweden one country among others.
An
exchange year has a clear border. It begins, continues and ends. Then
the suitcase is packed again.
I
returned to Sweden. Falun remained the town where I had grown up, but
it was no longer the only place where I had lived.
Later,
my education divided into fields that may look unrelated on paper. I
studied music production at Linnaeus University in Växjö,
completing those studies in 2009. I also studied pharmacy at Uppsala
University and completed my receptarie degree in 2013.
Music
production begins with sound, but it depends on structure. Separate
parts must be recorded, placed and balanced. Pharmacy begins with
substances, but it also depends on structure. Names, amounts and
instructions must be exact.
Växjö
and Uppsala added more points to the map. Neither replaced Falun.
Each was connected to a period of work and study. Each required the
practical acts of living somewhere: keeping an address, following a
schedule and learning the route between home and university.
My
interests also move between materials. I write. I work with wood. I
cook. I care about design and music.
Wood
is direct. A measurement is either right or wrong, though the final
object may still carry small variations. Cooking is also physical:
ingredients, heat and time. Design asks where something should be
placed. Writing does the same with words. Music places sound beside
silence.
These
activities leave different kinds of evidence. Wood leaves dust.
Cooking leaves dishes. Writing leaves a page. Music leaves a
recording.
My
working life took another direction. I now work with IT support and
AI enablement at Forvis Mazars in Sweden. The tools are newer, but
much of the work still concerns placement and structure. A system
must be connected correctly. A person needs the right access or
guidance. New technology must find a useful position inside existing
work.
“Support”
is an ordinary word. It suggests something beneath or beside the main
object, keeping it steady. In practice, support is often about
finding where a problem sits. Is it in the device, the account, the
network, the instructions or the way the parts meet?
AI
enablement raises a similar question. Technology can produce text,
patterns and suggestions, but it must be given a place. It needs
limits, purpose and people who understand what it can and cannot do.
My
professional English belongs here. Swedish remains my first language.
English crosses borders more easily inside international work. On a
screen, the distance between countries can be reduced to a meeting
link or a shared document. The physical distance remains.
I
live now in Stavsnäs, in the Stockholm archipelago. My address is on
Tallstigen. The name can be read plainly in Swedish: the pine path.
Stavsnäs
is neither my birthplace nor the town of my childhood. It is a place
I chose.
That
distinction matters without needing to cancel anything that came
before it. Sri Lanka is where I was born. Falun is where Bo and Britt
Marie raised Simon, Dana and me. Malaysia is where I spent a year
away from the Swedish point of view. Växjö and Uppsala belong to
the education I selected. Stavsnäs is where I live now.
The
archipelago changes the shape of a map. Roads do not settle every
question. Land breaks into islands, and water occupies the spaces
between them. Stockholm is close, but the coast sets its own
boundaries.
My
work connects me to offices, systems and people. My home stands
farther out, where the capital gives way to the archipelago.
I
have moved through subjects as well as places: social science and
economics, music production, pharmacy, IT and artificial
intelligence. The line between them is not straight. Neither is the
route from Sri Lanka to Falun, from Falun to Malaysia, or from inland
Sweden to Stavsnäs.
A
biography often asks for a beginning and an ending. The beginning can
be stated exactly: 2 February 1982, Sri Lanka.
The
present can also be stated exactly: Tallstigen 2, Stavsnäs, Sweden.
Between
those points are schools, universities, workplaces and rooms where
ordinary tasks were completed. A desk. A keyboard. A piece of wood
measured before cutting. Food prepared in a kitchen. Music arranged
one track at a time.
Outside
Stavsnäs, the land reaches the water and stops.
Niklas Pettersson lives in Stavsnäs, Sweden. He works in
IT support and AI enablement and has no previous writing credits.
