Point of Return - Tapa blanda

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.

Siddhartha Deb was born in India in 1970 and moved to New York in 1998 on a fellowship. He has worked as a journalist in Delhi and Calcutta, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and TLS.