A Discreet Exit Through Darkness reconstructs a mystery that has shaped Soumya Sankar Bose’s family for over five decades—the disappearance of his mother in 1969 and her unexplained return a few years later. Told through two interwoven narratives, the book unfolds from two perspectives: his grandfather, who relentlessly searched for his missing daughter, and his mother, who returned with no recollection of the years she was gone.

The first chapter is drawn from his grandfather’s diary, tracing a desperate journey through post-Partition Bengal, where political unrest, rumors of child trafficking, and fading superstitions shaped his pursuit of the truth. His writings, combined with archival research and Bose’s own reconstructions, piece together a father’s search in a time of uncertainty. While his entries are factual, they reveal the weight of his emotions—his hope, despair, and the silence that memory sometimes imposes on history.

The other chapter unfolds in his mother’s fragmented recollections, where memories and imagination intertwine. She remembers nothing of the years she was missing, but she carries the absence within her. Her struggle with prosopagnosia, or face blindness, further complicates her attempts to reclaim the past. Through conversations and journeys to places she might have been, Bose and his mother revisited these missing years—not to find definitive answers, but to understand how memory is preserved, reshaped, or lost entirely. This chapter moves between reality and myth, touching on the one-eyed woman who kidnapped her, the shadows of Maoist-Naxalite insurgency, and the sinking holy town of Joshimath.

This book is not just a family history; it is an attempt to understand how trauma lingers across generations, how personal grief intertwines with societal upheaval, and how memories—both real and imagined—shape the stories people tell themselves.