Point of Return

by SiddharthaDeb (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.28

  A story about home, family and country, written with searing honesty and insight.Set in the last decades of the twentieth century in a remote and hilly part of India, this is the moving and beautifully written story of a father and a son. Dr Dam and Babu have lived for years as strangers; strangers tied by blood, strangers in the same home, both puzzled and resentful. But as his father weakens and wearies of life, Babu is drawn closer to him. Before long he finds himself embarking on a great journey, an odyssey through the memories of his father, his family and his country. From the great tides of violence and fear that sweep a land, to the delicate core of one man's being, Point of Return traces with great delicacy the many hidden stories of India.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $4.37

  A moving story of a young man's relationship with his father and with India's pastThis is the story of a father and son, Dr Dam and Babu. The father crossed to India from Bangladesh at Partition. He knew nothing of the world he and his family had been catapulted into, but he made his way as best he could, always sticking to his principles and being guided by his morals. For this he earned himself a reputation as a strange and rather unlucky man, but he also gained the respect of many colleagues and acquaintances. As his father weakens and wearies of life, Babu, his son, begins to learn and understand a little better all that his father has gone through. He begins to retrace Dr Dam's long journey from childhood right up to his experiences in the present, including his endless fight with the bureaucratic corruption and indifference that surrounded him in his work. In this way Babu starts to pull together both his own family's life and the turbulence of the years that followed Partition.Deb writes in the most moving and delicate way about the hidden stories of India. He has an eye for the most delicious and insightful details of everyday life, and the warmth and talent to tell a story both from the personal and from the historical perspective with great success.