Set in the remote, northeastern hills of India, The point of return revolves around the father-son relationship of a willful, curious boy, Babu, and Doctor Dam, an enigmatic product of British colonial rule and Nehruvian nationalism. Told in reverse chronological order, the novel examines an India where the ideals that brought freedom from colonial rule are beginning to crack under the pressure of new rebellions and conflicts. For Dr. Dam and Babu, this has meant living as strangers in the same home, puzzled and resentful, tied only by blood. As the father grows weary and old and the son tries to understand him, clashes between ethnic groups in their small town show them to be strangers to their country as well. Before long, Babu finds himself embarking on a great journey, an odyssey through the memories of his father, his family, and his nation.
Siddhartha Deb is an Indian author who was educated in India and at Columbia University, US. Deb began his career in journalism as a sports journalist in Calcutta in 1994 before moving to Delhi to continue regular journalism.
Finished reading the book that I started unsteadily, believing it would not be useful to me. I was proved wrong. It is a heartfelt narration on the notion of home and alienation. Some of the passages moved me, nudging me out of my ease of these days.
The thing about belonging to a country and belonging to a space is not the same. To be a citizen, all the boxes in the constitution has to be ticked along with what the majority think who belongs to a country. But when you belong to a space, the space itself is a proof of the truth. You come to fall in love with it regardless all the odds. The people there may despise you but the space still feels like a home because you have been nurtured by the same. Today, with all the obsession about who belongs where, the strict political boundaries, ethnicities that determine the space and the race being the markers of one's loyalty, this book gives us a third eye to see, truly see the immigrants, the people who think of their immediate space, people who were victims of political demarcation, who have always travelled but are now not welcomed. It is about those people who came from Bangladesh, Nepal and other places to India, the one created by the Colonial government. This book is also about a space where you can never return to. Dr. Dam can never return to Bangladesh not because he cannot but that country is no longer a home to him. Similarly, Babu, his son, cannot return to India. The trajectories amongst the generations, the intricacies of father and son's relationship, the cultural disputes and the markers of identity, all play a role in creating a kind of sensitivity which we as comfortable readers(if we are) are shaken from our seats.
A moving and poignant tale about a father and son set in that elusive and enigmatic place that we call home. The author calls himself an "inept archaeologist of memories" who is writing this book about his father who finds himself in post-partition India and Nehruvian uprightness in Assam. A tale of conflicts between migrants and tribals, blindness to the fast-changing pace of politics, of bribery and paranoia in a place where the idea of India never took seed. The two main themes of the book are memory and homeland, or rather, the absence of a homeland: "We are a dispersed people, wandering, but unlike the Jews we have no mythical homeland." The book so beautifully captures the difficulty in making sense of "home" for people who choose to leave the places where they are born. What is home, anyway? Fewer and farther visits, smells, someone's version of an insignificant memory, people left behind, diaries, pictures, and a place devoid of imaginations on google maps?
Really enjoyed most of this book except the ending. I felt the tone changed and the son was over-explaining the situation that had been unfolded carefully and joyfully in earlier chapters. It was slow-moving throughout but beautifully written with passages that really captured the experience of trying to remain morally upstanding in a constraining situation and feeling you belong in a space despite the people in that space rejecting you. Had to force myself to get through the last 20 pages which I felt really took me out of the preceding story. Worth a read to understand a rarely written about part of India and a rarely written about sense of non-belonging.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I worked on this book as part of my research paper and I could say this was completely worth it. I could feel the words in my bare bones, the writer has magic in his craft of visualisation. I couldn't believe this was the debut book of this author. So honest, so painful. If you have a life which sometimes feels like a dilemma, this book should be read by you. You will remember your childhood, you would look back at your roots. Give it a read, you won't be regretting it.
This book does an adequate job of describing the relationship between a son and father in India during the eighties and nineties. It is not a particularly enthralling story in itself, however the insight into rural and urban areas of India, as well as the view that Indians (according to the author) have of other nations, is an interesting perspective. The story itself isn't bad, but I found myself somewhat disgusted with both the father and the son, although maybe a little more sympathetic to the father since it is not written from his point of view.
This book was quite exciting actually and kudos for hi-lighting the insider-outsider issue which is often deemed "sensitive" and overlooked from the outsider's perspectives. It can make a person angry and the scenario has caused a lot of division and separatism in a hostile manner but the story of the heart is definitely what matters in the end to make it a worthwhile read.