Five Ways to Belong
Synopsis
Five Ways to Belong is a contemporary Indian literary love story set against the political transfor
mation of India between 2015 and 2029. Centred on Presidency University, Kolkata, the novel
follows Aritra Chatterjee and Meher Ali as campus life, family loyalty, religious identity and
national politics shape their relationship across fourteen years.
In 2015, eighteenyearold Aritra leaves the fictional small town of Swapnapur in North 24
Parganas to study Political Science at Presidency University. His family regards admission to the
prestigious institution as the reward for years of financial sacrifice. Aritra arrives shy, careful and
determined to avoid controversy. His father, Subhashish, admires the new government in Delhi
and warns him to stay away from student politics. Aritra believes education can remain separate
from the conflicts occupying television debates and election campaigns.
Presidency unsettles that belief. Its classrooms, demonstrations, debates, festivals, common rooms
and canteens expose him to classmates whose experiences of the country differ sharply from his
own. He gradually learns that prestige, politics and study cannot be kept in separate compartments.
His politically perceptive younger sister, Riddhi, also begins questioning the rumours, forwarded
messages and communal assumptions circulating at home.
Aritra becomes close to Meher Ali, a confident and intellectually independent Muslim student
from Park Circus. Their friendship grows through lectures, library work, College Street bookstalls,
train journeys, campus campaigns and long arguments at Promodda’s canteen. Meher challenges
Aritra’s habit of recognising injustice in public while avoiding conflict within his family. Aritra,
in turn, sees the pressures placed on Meher whenever her surname turns an ordinary interaction
into an examination of her belonging.
As incidents of communal violence, misinformation and attacks on dissent enter university life,
Aritra becomes increasingly active in student politics. His relationship with Meher deepens into
love, but he keeps it hidden from his parents. Their private happiness—stolen afternoons, shared
books, rain beneath College Street awnings and moments of intimacy around the campus—exists
beside a growing disagreement about the meaning of courage. Meher’s family knows enough about
Aritra to understand the risks; Aritra repeatedly introduces Meher at home only as a classmate.
The conflict reaches its breaking point when Meher visits Swapnapur. During a family discussion,
a relative speaks about Muslims in humiliating and communal terms while treating Meher as an
exception required to justify herself. Aritra objects only cautiously, attempting to calm the room
instead of defending her clearly in the moment. He argues more forcefully after she leaves, but
Meher recognises the larger pattern: Aritra is willing to oppose prejudice when it does not threaten
his own belonging, while expecting her to endure the delay.
Near the Presidency Tank, Meher ends their relationship. She still loves him, but refuses to remain
grateful for a love acknowledged only where it costs him little. Soon afterwards she leaves Kolkata
for JNU. Aritra remains behind with the knowledge that his silence—not a lack of love—destroyed
the relationship. Their separation marks the end of their youth together, but not the influence they
continue to exert on each other’s choices. The following years carry them through different institutions and political worlds. Aritra pursues
higher study at JNU and becomes involved in organising, labour rights and opposition politics.
Meher develops as a scholar, completing doctoral and postdoctoral work connected with Oxford
and SOAS before returning to India as a political scientist and teacher. Their careers grow from
the questions they first encountered at Presidency, but neither uses achievement as a substitute for
the emotional reckoning they avoided.
They do not speak for eleven years. Even so, they remain aware of each other through news reports,
academic work, mutual friends and political campaigns. Aritra gradually learns to accept public
consequences for his convictions instead of treating private caution as responsibility. Meher builds
a life in which her work, friendships and ambitions are not organised around an old wound. Their
parallel journeys unfold through protests over citizenship, attacks on universities, the pandemic,
institutional repression, elections and the increasingly authoritarian political atmosphere of the
late 2020s.
By 2029, democratic institutions are under severe pressure. Detentions, propaganda, attacks on
dissent and attempts to manipulate the electoral process lead to a broad national resistance.
Students, workers, lawyers, journalists, teachers and opposition groups form an uneasy coalition.
Aritra emerges as a visible organiser and political figure, but his candidacy is suspended after
he refuses to remain silent about abuses committed for electoral advantage. Meher contributes
through teaching, research, legalsupport networks and public advocacy. Their actions become
connected through the movement, although they still do not contact each other.
The nationwide mobilisation helps preserve the conditions for an election rather than replacing
electoral democracy. The ruling alliance is defeated, but the novel refuses to treat a change of
government as the automatic end of authoritarianism, communal prejudice or social inequality.
The new coalition inherits a wounded country, and those who resisted must decide whether they
can remain accountable after victory.
The day after the decisive political transition, Aritra and Meher return separately to Presidency for
a Founders’ Day reunion. The campus is recognisable but altered, filled with former students, new
generations and memories that no longer belong entirely to them. They meet in the Quad for the
first time since their separation.
Aritra apologises without presenting his later political work as compensation. He acknowledges
that he loved Meher while asking her to wait outside his courage, and that he had understood
enough at the time to make a different choice. Meher does not allow nostalgia or public heroism
to erase the past, but she recognises that he has finally learned to accept responsibility without
demanding immediate forgiveness.
At Promodda’s canteen, surrounded by old friends and presentday students, the five meanings of
belonging that have shaped the novel come together: prestige, politics, porashuno, prem and the
canteen itself. Aritra and Meher do not promise each other an effortless future. They agree only to
have dinner the next day and begin again honestly.
Outside the Presidency gate, Meher takes Aritra’s hand. He asks permission to kiss her, and she
says yes. Their kiss does not erase the years of separation or resolve the country’s conflicts. It
becomes the first act of a future they have chosen to approach with greater courage, consent and
accountability.
Through Aritra and Meher’s relationship, Five Ways to Belong explores how young people inherit
family loyalties, political language and social prejudice—and how education can compel them to question those inheritances. It is both a campus novel and a mature love story about the difference
between feeling love privately and defending another person’s dignity when it carries a cost.