In 1971, nearly 10 million refugees crossed into India from East Pakistan, yet little is documented about their journey from this point onwards. At a time when identity is increasingly defined by paperwork and official proof, what does it mean to live without any particular record of who you are?

Register Me as Kulbhushan, written by Sahitya Akademi Award–winning author Alka Saraogi, translated into English by John Vater, and published by Penguin Random House India (2026), explores these questions through the life of a man known by many names—Kulbhushan Jain, Gopal Chandra Das, and Bhushan Chacha; identities shaped by his repeated attempts to reclaim identity in a new nation.

Set in the historic city of Kolkata, the novel captures the quieter aftermath of 1971, when survival often demanded reinvention and entire lives disappeared beyond the reach of official records. Central to the narrative is the haunting idea of a “button of forgetting” (a means of surviving trauma through erasure) prompting unsettling questions about what is lost in the act of forgetting. Through one man’s determination to be recognised and officially recorded, Register Me as Kulbhushan becomes a moving reflection on identity as something shaped by borders, bureaucracy, and the deeply human need to belong.

Below is an excerpt tracing Kulbhushan’s journey from Dhaka to Kolkata, where his search for identity would commence.

While Kulbhushan was boarding the train with his mother, straining under the weight of their four iron trunks and four bedding rolls, he saw that the carriages were already chock-o-block with people who had boarded at Dhaka station. A majority of them were lugging rope-tied baggage and bedrolls and seemed to be leaving East Pakistan forever as well. Pushing and shoving their way through the crowded train car, Kulbhushan was dogged by the worry that one of their parcels might get knocked loose by a jostling passenger and get lost amid the parade of feet. If his father hadn’t arrived with six of his labourers,it would have been impossible for him and his Ma to haul their baggage aboard the compartment on their own.

As the train clattered for five hours down the tracks,the carriage buzzed with tales about the riots near Dhaka.While staring out the window at the passing scenery of lowering, rain-bellied clouds and water-soaked fields,Kulbhushan felt a ball of dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought that some unspeakable accident had also befallen Anil’s family in Narayanganj. It would have explained why he had left town in such a rush. From the moment the train had pulled out of Dhaka, the name of the nearest neighbouring station, Narayanganj, was also being lowly intoned on passengers’ lips.

Upon alighting at Sealdah with their luggage,Kulbhushan gawped at the vast sea of humanity roiling around the station platform. It struck him as though the whole population of East Pakistan had packed up their possessions and converged en masse to this very spot.Across the length and breadth of the platform, refugees were sleeping on the floor with dirty sheets spread out underneath their legs. Threading their way through the crowd, he was assaulted by the stench of unwashed bodies,piles of refuse and a roaring heaving clamour everywhere he looked.

He queried a bored coolie about the thronging multitude. ‘Don’t even get me started,’ the man scowled, casting a contemptuous glance at the squatters. ‘Every day now, displaced peoples are streaming in by the thousands.Nobody wants to take them, so they’ve squatted here. Once the government finishes readying the new camps, they’ll clear out. It’s become a real nightmare getting round this mess.’

Anil Mukherjee was hovering at the back of his mind. It was curious to him why he’d felt with such certainty that he would be reunited with his friend here. ‘Did you happen to see a disabled man who walks with a limp?’Kulbhushan pressed. ‘He had arrived on the train about six months ago.’

The coolie’s eyes bulged. He spat red betel juice onto the ground. ‘Is your head screwed on right, babu? What nonsense question is that? I just told you that hundreds of thousands of people have descended on this station. What news would anyone be carrying about a lone cripple?’

Kulbhushan noticed that Ma was losing her patience at him for chatting at length with a mere porter. ‘Find out what you need to know and let’s go! Has your elder brother arrived to fetch us? Careful that none of our luggage goes floating off.’

Kulbhushan’s roving eyes came to rest on a banner for the Relief and Rehabilitation Department (R&R) stuck to a concrete pillar. He felt a twinge of relief, resolving to return again the next day to ask the authorities about how Anil Mukherjee might be found. He had it on good authority from Shyama that in all the six months since Anil had disappeared, he had not once attempted to establish contact either. His youngest son had no inkling where his family had disappeared, leaving him alone at the house.Anil’s cousin’s phone in Calcutta was not working.

Dr Kasim had often tried coaxing Anil’s son to visit Calcutta and make enquiries about his family’s whereabouts. But the boy insisted that his father had given him strict instructions not to step foot outside of Kushtia and leave the house unattended. Dr Kasim had taken the cost of the boy’s studies and living expenses onto his own shoulders. All they could do was wait and hold their breath until Anil eventually phoned Dr Kasim from whatever undisclosed location he’d ended up…