Hirakud Days is a tender, closely observed memoir of growing up in the Indal township beside the great Hirakud Dam in the 1960s and early 80s. Written from the perspective of a child, it recreates a self-contained world of colony lanes, festivals,...

Hirakud Days is a tender, closely observed memoir of growing up in the Indal township beside the great Hirakud Dam in the 1960s and early 80s. Written from the perspective of a child, it recreates a self-contained world of colony lanes, festivals, friendships and quiet routines that has largely disappeared.Through episodes of Holi and Diwali, the excitement of Ratha Yatra, the first rains after a long summer, blackout drills during the 1971 war, and the everyday pleasures of the swimming pool, tennis court and neighbourhood visits, the book captures the textures of a close-knit industrial community.Uncles and Aunties, friends and neighbours form an extended family. The river, the dam and the surrounding landscape remain constant companions.Sensory and affectionate, Hirakud Days records both a personal childhood and a gentle social history of a particular time and place in industrial Odisha. It is a book about belonging, about the small rituals that held a community together, and about a way of life marked by restraint, warmth and deep connection to the land and water around it.For anyone who has ever returned, in memory, to the place where they first learned what home felt like.