This book traces a family mystery: the disappearance of Bose’s mother in 1969, and her return, years later, with no memory of where she had been. Told through two interwoven narratives—‘A Discreet Exit Through Darkness’ and ‘Things We Lost Last Night’—the book unfolds from two perspectives: Bose’s grandfather, who relentlessly searched for his missing daughter, and Bose’s mother, who returned with no recollection of the years she was gone.

The first chapter, ‘A Discreet Exit Through Darkness’ is drawn from his grandfather’s diary, tracing a desperate journey through post-partition Bengal, where political unrest, rumours of child trafficking, and fading superstitions shaped his pursuit of the truth. Repeated attempts to find her daughter met with failures. It had a detrimental effect on his psyche and finally, he succumbed to his grief in 1970 before his daughter was rescued. With his demise, the most vital thread of the entire journey was lost forever.

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, ‘Things We Lost Last Night’ 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 quiet journeys to places she might have passed through, mother and son attempt to trace the echoes of that vanished time—not to seek definitive truths, but to understand how memory fractures and reforms. This part 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.

Though they never met again in life, their diary entries edge closer with each page— converging on a single moment, separated only by a fragile leaf of paper.

This book is an effort to cradle that impossible meeting and to envision what history withheld. 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.

Both the chapters have been exhibited at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes, France; Centre de la Photographie Genève, Switzerland; Delfina Foundation, London, UK; Experimenter Colaba during Mumbai Gallery Weekend, India; The Rencontres d’Arles, France; and Art Central, Hong Kong.

– “A Discreet Exit Through Darkness” received the Louis Roederer Discovery Public Award at the Rencontres d’Arles in France in 2023.

– “A Discreet Exit Through Darkness & Things We Lost Last Night” is shortlisted for THE PARIS PHOTO & APERTURE FOUNDATION PHOTOBOOK AWARDS 2025