Exile
Suryakant’s life begins to unravel as he is forced to quit his government job. To get temporary financial relief, he decides to work for a Ramjoar Pandey and trace his lineage. The journey takes Suryakant back to Sultanpur, his hometown and his estranged family. The past slips in and out, as in a dream, and the future congeals into a mass of anxiety and fear. Set in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh, the men and women in the book are faced with ruthlessness, depravity and an intense loneliness, rising from the overwhelming assault of capitalism and consumerism. Akhilesh’s inventive prose, treads the ground between memory and moment, the states of being and not being, as it follows the lives of ordinary people who discover the thin line that separates freedom from exile. Exile portrays the mortal wounds inflicted by the modern civilization on our soul.
