Point of View

Such a Long Journey is written in the third person as a narrative of current events. The narrator is privy to the characters' minds. Flashbacks to the protagonist's childhood are frequent. The characters' conversations are used to debate events then current in the Indian subcontinent. The independence of Bangladesh, the brief war between India and Pakistan, massacres of innocents, a face-off between the U.S. and Soviet fleets, and, above all, widespread assumptions that the government of Indira Gandhi is thoroughly corrupt and unstoppable are all addressed. Except as a forum for these political expositions, dialog plays a minor role in moving the story forward.

Setting

Such a Long Journey is set in and around Bombay, India in 1971-72. The author incorporates an historical event, Bangladesh's declaration of independence. The volatile political and military events that rocked the entire subcontinent during that era are not only...