In Search of Home

Lucknow is no longer quite the city it once was: a place of old-world grace, Urdu poetry, and tehzeeb, now reshaped by market capitalism and communalism. This conversation, centred on the novella  Homecoming, explores what it means for India to undergo one of the largest urbanisations in history. With cities and culture morphing into unrecognisable, and sometimes alienating, new forms, what makes a space worth belonging to?

Beyond the novel lies a larger question of language tied to belonging: how lived experience is shaped by the language spoken in a place, a thread the author has long…