Summary

The United Front collapses in early 1968 and President’s Rule controls West Bengal. Although the education system becomes a target of unrest with exams boycotted and convocations disrupted, both brothers begin postgraduate studies. Subdash stays at Jadavpur while Udayan goes to Calcutta University.

Udayan begins attending meetings after school, sometimes missing dinner at home as a result, and one evening he invites Subhash to come along. Subhash does, out of curiosity, but it is nothing like the raucous debate he pictured in his mind. Instead, one student speaks quietly about the formation of a new society, and how parliamentary politics needed to come to an end. Subhash felt as though he wasn’t there but Udayan is rapt. Subhash finds slogans, a can of red paint and a brush under the bed and questions Udayan about it one evening after he returns...