The book is a narrative of Mohit Sen's life, beginning in the 1930s and the 1940s with his upbringing in a liberal aristocratic family in Kolkata. This is an intensely personal document, which at the same time is a record of history of the early years of freedom, of the start of the Nehruvian experiment, and the Chinese invasion of 1962. More importantly, it is a record of the political transitions and fortunes of one of India's major political parties, The CPI. Mohit Sen joined the Communist Party of India in 1948. He was a full time worker of the CPI from 1953 to 1986.