Chapter 1
The narrator, born thirteen years after Mayadebi’s 1939 journey to England with her husband and son Tridib, recalls how his grandmother called Mayadebi “Mayathakuma” and how the narrator, as a child, imagined Tridib to be his own age despite being an adult. The grandmother despises Tridib, labeling him a loafer, yet welcomes him because he is the family’s only wealthy relative. Tridib suffers from “Gastric,” a digestive ailment that forces him to dash to the lavatory whenever he visits, prompting a ritual of family visits followed by a hurried bathroom break and an omelette served by the grandmother.
Tridib’s father is a diplomat; his elder brother Jatin works for the UN; his younger brother Robi attends boarding school. Tridib spends most of his life in Calcutta, living in Ballygunge with his aging grandmother, and he is both admired and feared by neighbourhood youths for his erudition and occasional sharp remarks. He frequents Gole Park’s street‑corner addas, where he shares anecdotes about archaeology, jazz, and literature, and sometimes offers precise advice on exams or job interviews—though his counsel can be misleading.
The narrator learns of Tridib’s 1939 trip to England, hearing Tridib’s fabricated story about staying with “Mrs Price” at 44 West Hampstead. Later, the narrator meets the real May Price in London while attending a Royal Festival Hall concert where she plays the oboe. May, now an older woman living alone, recognises the narrator, invites him to dinner, and reveals her work with Amnesty, Oxfam, and earthquake‑relief projects. She recounts her own history: a childhood spent in Calcutta with Mayadebi, a later stay in a London home where she used to play the recorder, and an eventual career as a professional oboist.
Through May’s recollections the narrator discovers the true connection between Tridib’s family and the Prices: Mrs Price’s father Lionel Tresawsen, a former tin‑mine overseer and later a steel‑tube trader who befriended Tridub’s grandfather, the judge Chandrashekhar Datta‑Chaudhuri. The Prices had a daughter May who was an infant when Tridib was in London; they never met after that. The narrator’s own research trip to London (a scholarship on the India‑England textile trade) leads him to seek out May, ultimately finding her at a concert and re‑encountering her at her flat, where they share a modest dinner and discuss her humanitarian work.
The chapter weaves together multiple timelines: childhood memories of Tridib’s visits and the narrator’s cricket games; teenage discussions with Ila about Tridib’s stories; the narrator’s later academic pursuits in Delhi and London; and the deepening understanding of family histories, colonial ties, and personal identity shaped by elusive relatives and transnational encounters.