After years of trying to belong to Lucknow, once a city of poetry and grace where he had hoped to find something of the father he had lost, Hassan meets a kindred spirit—Ahmed Sahib, an elderly man of quiet warmth and dignity, although diminished in circumstance. Ahmed Sahib shows him a Lucknow that could become home, and gives him the gift of unspoken friendship.
Later, Ahmed Sahib also leads him to love—to Samina, seeking a harbour as Hassan himself has done for half a lifetime. Bound by their common search, they try to make a home in Lucknow, but the city is changing. When an exquisite little monument in the old quarter is demolished, departure becomes inevitable. Will the old search begin once again in a distant land? Will they be together in the search again? And where will it take them?
Spare, nostalgic and moving, Omair Ahmad’s new novella is a meditation on love, lost and gained, and on ideas of family, home and belonging.