It is 1984, and New Delhi is simmering with ethnic strife as anti-Sikh riots erupt after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination. This cataclysmic event serves as the backdrop to the day-to-day ordinariness of an immigrant Bengali family’s life. Chhobi, the elder, sensitive and intelligent, is forever trying to rein in beautiful, Narcisstic Sonali. Ma, their mother, struggles with her loneliness after being widowed in her thirties; Dida is their feisty grandmother whose indomitable spirit prods the family on during times of adversity; and Dadu, their grandfather, is a man perpetually homesick for his estates, irretrievably lost as borders are redrawn to form Bangladesh. Sonny – rich, handsome and arrogant – enters Sonali’s life, only to jilt her. Sonali’s thwarted love affair, and a maritime misadventure, are the catalysts that alter the predictable pattern of the Bengali family’s life and propels its women to find within themselves hitherto unknown strengths — and to evolve and deal with changed circumstances. The story traces the gradual erosion of old values, an acceptance of new identities and, for the grandfather, at last a sense of realization that Delhi is home.
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