The Homecoming and Other Stories

“The Homecoming” is a selection of personal observations from the writer’s memory, of events, personalities and the changing face of Bengal, some of which actually occurred during his lifetime, during the turbulent sixties, seventies and eighties of the last century and some entertaining personal anecdotes. The book is expected to be of interest to both casual readers and persons with a more serious bent of mind. The book records the writer’s impressions of the socio political change in the climate of his home state after 30 long years of absence during which he travelled and worked in the other metropolitan cities of India and abroad. He remembers Calcutta as a child and as a student and talks about various personalities with whom he interacted both before and after leaving the city including members of his family, close friends and associates and the environment which he left behind and now rediscovers. His perceptions of society and his spiritual, material and cultural beliefs, relevant to a generation which nursed these values are clear, unbiased and relevant. These perceptions are at once serious, learned, funny and sad. Some sections are more philosophical and introspective, but fluent and readable. Overall, it is a highly engaging account of an individual to whom writing came late in life but who is grateful for his experiences and their impact on his sensitivities. The writer lived through the aftermath of Independence and the subsequent Partition of India. His father, a senior member of the Indian Civil Service, the small but powerful bureaucracy that ruled India at the time, was a brilliant scholar and economist, who resigned from the service on an issue of principle. The reader is treated to a few intimate cameos of the man who was widely respected by the community for his integrity, honesty and extraordinary career in the heyday of the British Raj.There is a note of pathos in the concluding paragraph, which is touching.The satire on the working of the Motor Vehicles Department at Beltala is frequently hilarious if not at times cynical. The piece was published by a leading English newspaper of India. It relates in great detail the story of how driving licences are issued in the city and recounts the writer’s own bizarre experiences with the bureaucracy not to speak of the touts and illegal practices which continue to flourish in this Government Department. His descriptions of the old city of Hyderabad in search of an antique piece is delightfully funny. There are graphic descriptions of the sights and smells of old Hyderabad, its lanes and bylanes, the courtesies associated with that city’s princely heritage and the adventure of riding pillion on a motorbike without a helmet.The travelogue about Cambodia is meditative and haunting, written as it is against the background of the culture and religion of the Khmers and the unmistakable influence of Hindu temple architecture and iconography on its temples, specifically in Angkor and its surroundings. Overall the book is a winning read, smart, without being obssessive or shying away from compelling philosophic investigation.