Choudhury’s narrative is beautifully written and anchored by an exceptionally strong personal perspective by way of vignette and anecdote. Straightforward yet subtle, his vivid and unsentimental examination of his home town faces a crucial and insoluble dilemma. For migrants, even privileged migrants (Choudhury’s father is an eminent research scientist), what and where is home, what and where is identity?
Choudhury left America and returned to report for The Statesman, Calcutta’s English-language newspaper, reminding us that over half of the immigrants that went through Ellis Island at the turn of the twentieth century went back to their countries of origin.
