Calcutta, the capital city of West Bengal, the eastern state of India. The period is 1970-72. The city is in the grip of a leftist militant movement, popularly known as the 'Naxalbari Movement'. This movement began in the Naxalbari region to get minimum wages for the agricultural labour and soon spread to other rural and urban areas including Calcutta. It attracted wide participation from the leftish intelligentsia and student groups. Sujata Chatterji is a middle aged, traditional, submissive, unprotesting, upper middle class lady, employed in a commercial bank in Calcutta. She awakens one morning to the shattering news that her youngest and favourite son, Brati, is lying dead in a police morgue, reduced to a mere numerical: Corpse no. 1084. This awakening propels her on a journey of discovery, in the course of which, struggling to understand her naxalite sons revolutionary commitment, she begins to recognise her own alienation as a woman and wife from the complacent, hypocrytical bourgeoise society her son had rebelled against....