Fiction: Spanning 30 years, this novel follows the lives of six friends during the Gorkhaland unrest

Name: RP.

Gurung Full name: Ramprasad Gurung

Age: Fifty-seven in 2017, twenty-six in 1986. But if he says I’m “this” old, people will say incredulously, “No! Really?” He doesn’t look his age.

Height: Just tall enough for the Army.

Educational qualification: To be honest, I find this term ‘educational qualification’ a little controversial. To say that Ramprasad is merely an “eighth-class pass” would be a gross injustice because though the fact is indisputable, his intellectual is no lesser than many who have received their bachelor’s degree.

Appearance: His father had an inter-community marriage with a Thulung Rai woman and he has taken completely after his mother. Meaning, wherever he was posted, his features could land him in trouble.

Occupation: A soldier in the Indian Army for five years. A spurned, drunken lover, like Sarat Chandra’s Devdas, for close to half a year. Thereafter, branch vice president of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), the Party, for about a year. And branch chief of the Gorkha Volunteer Cell (GVC), the militant wing of the GNLF, for three years.

There is a worm of politics inside Ramprasad’s brain. Now and then it wriggles and prods him to play a role in village politics, but Ramprasad has always regarded himself more...

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