Utkatu Naiker started from humble beginnings as a grandson of Indian indentured labourers brought to Fiji by the British colonial administration and rose to manage the Fiji Housing Authority. He was then recruited by the United Nations where he coordinated the implementation of the UN Global Strategy for Shelter. He describes his growing up in an emerging Indian community in the post-indenture period, a brief encounter with the US army during World War II, his schooling under the British colonial education system, his training as a Land Surveyor and Town Planner in Australia, his experiences during the years before and after the colony’s independence from Britain and his professional services in Fiji and the UN.