Alaknanda Bagchi

A Longing for Home Alaknanda Bagchi

In this memoir, the author returns to her childhood home in Kolkata, India, to sell her grandmother's house. While she spends a year trying to settle her grandmother's estate, her mind drifts back to memories of her childhood. As the memoir unfolds, vignettes of Calcutta in the 1970s alternate with scenes of Kolkata today. Past and present fuse to highlight a world in which much has changed. Old homes are fast giving way to high-rises, neighborhood stores are being replaced with shopping malls, and many of the old-world traditions are beginning to disappear. Amidst these changes, the author seeks the world of her childhood which was a world resonating with love and laughter. During this sojourn, she finds herself oscillating between the evocative world of nostalgic recollections and the realities of the world of real estate and bureaucracy as she begins the process of bidding farewell to her home, her family, and her country.