Dr Ajit Bhide and Amandeep Sandhu are reading Sepia Leaves, the latter's debut novel, from Tara Press (India Research Press) at 7 pm on January 18.

The reading will be held at Crossword, Residency Road.

`Sepia leaves’ is a novel set in the 1970s. India is reeling under Emergency and in Rourkela, a Nehruvian dream town in Orissa, a small boy is struggling to deal with his dysfunctional family.

The arrival of a surrogate mother for Appu causes his mother's madness to take a furious turn.

Years later, Appu's father dies on a summer evening in Bangalore.

In the course of that night, Appu pores over letters, diaries, and family albums to slowly come to terms with his mother's illness and its effect on those living under its shadow.
Sepia Leaves parallels the nation-state and the fall of its biggest creation: the nuclear family.

As Appu puts together the pieces of his fragmented past, an individual's memory becomes the landscape on which critical events of a nation's socio-political history are played out.

 It is a tale about one man's quest to find himself by understanding where he comes from.

The book seeks reconciliation between love and guilt.

The answers are not easy and Sepia Leaves explores whether storytelling itself can be an act of resolving the past and hoping about the future.

DHNS