Helium

On November 1st, 1984, the day after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, a nineteen-year-old student returns from a class trip with his mentor and chemistry teacher, Professor Singh. When the group steps off the train at Delhi station, a mob closes in on the professor, throws a tire over him, soaks him in gasoline and sets him on fire. Years later, the student, Raj, feels driven to track down the professor's widow, Nelly. The two of them walk through the misty mountains around Shimla. Nelly confronts a country that refuses to acknowledge what happened, and Raj has to face the truth about his own father's part in the massacre of Sikhs. For both of them, the path leads back to the train station. Jaspreet Singh's novel looks at a moment in Indian memory that has seldom been explored in fiction.