Jug Jug Jiye by Samaresh Basu [Hardcover]

This story begins at a perilous time when the air is filled only with the smell of gunpowder. The entire country resonated with the sounds of bullets and explosions. Squadrons of aircraft soared through the sky. Cannons roared in all directions. The menacing claws of fascism extended from one nation to another.

Hitler, Russia, Japanese bombs, Gandhi, Subhas Bose, Fazlul Haq, the Allies, self-defense—such words were the constant subjects of curiosity at every moment. This story begins in that strange time when secret preparations for revolution were underway in Medinipur when an uncompromising war was being waged for the "Quit India" movement, when military camps spread across Kolkata and industrial areas, when British soldiers marched, sirens wailed, prices of goods skyrocketed, and banned books stamped with the hammer and sickle passed from hand to hand. The peasant and worker fronts were being organized—it was indeed a remarkable time.

This story begins in that turbulent era, against the vast backdrop of industrial regions and Kolkata. On one side was the crisis, the strangeness, the intensity of the time; on the other, the lives of people inextricably intertwined with it. Through a sequence of events, in the electrifying light of complex conflicts, the faces of these people gradually emerged, revealing the contours of an era.

Not only did the imprisoned figures of that time become clear, but through the sharp, probing strokes of Samaresh Basu's pen, a greater truth emerged—one that declares that rebellion and revolution are eternal, that the spirit of defiance in humanity is immortal.