🧳 From wardrobes to welcome: what a wandering fakir taught me about belonging and systems

When I first watched The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir, I wasn’t expecting a masterclass in systems thinking. But by the end of it, I’d scribbled more reflections than I do after most strategy sessions.

Raj, a fakir from Rajasthan, travels to Paris in search of a new bed of nails. But after falling asleep inside a wardrobe in IKEA, he’s swept into a journey across Europe — encountering migrants, mafias, misunderstandings and moments of unexpected tenderness.

It’s funny. It’s surreal. And it’s deeply human.

It also reminded me how rarely public services are designed for the full, messy, transnational journeys that people actually live.

🚚 Designing for unpredictable lives

Raj’s journey isn’t one most service designers would map. It’s not linear. It crosses borders — legal, geographic and emotional. At every stop, he’s misunderstood:

• mistaken for a refugee in Kent
• mislabelled a mafia member in Rome
• assumed to be part of a travelling family in Barcelona

He doesn’t fit any neat service pathway. And yet, he builds relationships, adapts with empathy, and finds belonging in unexpected places.

In a way, it mirrors the experience of many people navigating systems today — especially migrants, carers, and those in precarity.

We build silos. They live interdependencies.

🌍 What this means for how we design systems

If you work in strategy, innovation, or delivery, here are some provocations Raj’s journey raises:

1. Design beyond borders

Most services are designed within a jurisdiction. But people cross boroughs, agencies, and countries.

Try this: Explore examples like Solidarity Cities or PICUM which support undocumented migrants through pan-European coalitions.

2. Design for relationships, not just roles

Raj is defined by others: immigrant, stranger, faker, protector. But the turning points in his journey come from human connection — a gesture on a plane, a favour in a detention centre.

Try this: Learn from Camden’s cross-sector roundtables that bring people together not by job title, but by shared neighbourhoods and issues.

3. Build space for surprise

Public services often try to predict and contain. But Raj’s story shows how lives spill out of categories. We need systems that can listen, not just sort.

Try this: Look at tools like SenseMaker or Participatory Narrative Inquiry that help make sense of multiple lived realities.

4. Think with story, not just structure

A spreadsheet wouldn’t capture Raj’s journey. But a story would. That’s why narrative and metaphor matter in systems change.

Try this: Follow the work of Narrative Initiative or Rising Arts Agency who use creative storytelling to shape policy and practice.

🧪 Real-world examples to learn from

Across Europe and the UK, some places are already working this way:

• Barcelona’s City of Refuge supports migrants through housing, employment and language in one integrated system.
• Voices of Freedom in the UK supports women with lived experience of the asylum system to shape services.

These aren’t projects. They’re shifts in posture.

💬 Final thoughts: what if systems were more like stories?

Raj’s journey reminds us that systems don’t serve people by being perfect.
They serve by being open to possibility.

To love.
To humour.
To welcome.

If you work in change — in a council, a community group, a startup or a strategy unit — what might happen if we built our services more like wardrobes than walls?

Spaces to rest.
Spaces to listen.
Spaces that travel with people — wherever they go.

This blog draws on reflections from The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir, and real-world examples from Barcelona’s City of Refuge, Voices of Freedom, Camden Council, Rising Arts Agency and Solidarity Cities.