Helium
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
On 1 November 1984, a day after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination, a nineteen-year-old student, Raj, travels back from a class trip with his mentor, Professor Singh. As the group disembark at Delhi station a mob surrounds the professor, throws a tire over him, douses him in gasoline, and sets him alight.
Years later, after moving to the United States, Raj finds himself compelled to return to India to find his professor's widow, the beautiful and enigmatic Nelly. As the two walk through the misty mountains of Shimla, painful memories emerge, and Raj realizes he must face the truth about his father's role in a genocidal pogrom. But, as they soon discover, the path leads inexorably back to that day at the train station.
In this lyrical and haunting exploration of one of the most shocking moments in the history of the Indian nation, Jaspreet Singh has crafted an affecting and important story of memory, collective silences and personal trauma.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Singh's (Chef) second novel follows Dr. Raj Kumar back to India, 25 years after he left for graduate school in the United States, to find the widow of his favorite professor and confront the horrors of his past. In 1984, Raj stood by, helpless, as rioters set his Sikh mentor on fire during the pogroms that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination. But afterward, he can't bring himself to visit Dr. Kaur's widow, Nelly, with whom Raj had been conducting an affair. Now, a quarter of a century later, his marriage in shambles and his career on a precipice, Raj tracks down Nelly in the mountain city of Shimla and finds her aged by time and grief. He tries to regain her trust and learn her story, while investigating on his own in an attempt to make amends. In the process, he uncovers damning evidence that only binds him more tightly to his past, and Raj must decide how to proceed without causing irreparable damage to Nelly or himself. An indictment of the terrible events of November, 1984, the book teases out the complicated intersection of family, love, politics, and hate, and how one man confronts the responsibility and guilt of one of the worst times in his nation's history.
