A Return to Self : Excursions in Exile

In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Narenda Modi revoked Aatish Taseer's Indian citizenship, thereby exiling him from the country where he grew up and lived for thirty years. This loss, both practical and spiritual, sent him on a journey of revisiting the places that formed his identity, and asking broader questions about the complex forces that make a culture and a nationality, in the process. In Istanbul, he confronts the hopes and ambitions of his former self. In Uzbekistan, he sees how what was once the majestic portal of the Silk Road is now a tourist facade. In India, he explores why Buddhism, which originated there, is so little practiced. Everywhere he goes, the ancient world mixes intimately with the contemporary: with the influences of the pandemic, the rise of new food cultures, and the ongoing cultural battles of regions around the world. How do centuries of cultures evolving and overlapping, often violently, shape the people that subsequently emerge from them? In thoughtful prose that combines reportage with romanticism, Taseer casts an incisive eye at what it means to belong to a place that becomes an unstable, politicized vessel for ideas defined by exclusion and prejudice, and gets to the human heart of the shifts and migrations that define our multicultural world.Author: Aatish Taseer,author
Contributors: Aatish Taseer,author
Binding: paperback
Publication Date:
Release Date:
Languages: English,Published,English,Original Language,Englis
Published/Release Date: 21 Jul 2026
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher/Studio/Brand: Catapult
Author/Director/Artist: Aatish Taseer
Dimension (cm): 209x139x17 mm
Package Dimension (cm): 27x207x139 mm
Item Weight (g): 249
Package Weight (g): 320