A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile

by Aatish Taseer

A blend of travelog and memoir spanning from Turkey to Mexico, exploring Aatish Taseer’s uniquely blended identity and Why do certain cities become epicenters of great historical shifts and sites of unpredictable communities?

In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Narenda Modi revoked Aatish Taseer’s Indian citizenship, thereby exiling him from the country where he grew up and lived for thirty years. This loss, both practical and spiritual, sent him on a journey of revisiting the places that formed his identity, and asking broader questions about the complex forces that make a culture and a nationality, in the process. 

In Istanbul, he confronts the hopes and ambitions of his former self. In Uzbekistan, he sees how what was once the majestic portal of the Silk Road is now a tourist façade. In India, he explores why Buddhism, which originated there, is so little practiced. Everywhere he goes, the ancient world mixes intimately with the with the influences of the pandemic, the rise of new food cultures, and the ongoing cultural battles of regions around the world. How do centuries of cultures evolving and overlapping, often violently, shape the people that subsequently emerge from them? 

In thoughtful prose that combines reportage with romanticism, Taseer casts an incisive eye at what it means to belong to a place that becomes an unstable, politicized vessel for ideas defined by exclusion and prejudice, and gets to the human heart of the shifts and migrations that define our multicultural world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Travel, Travelogue, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2025

About the author

Aatish Taseer has worked as a reporter for Time Magazine and has written for the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, Prospect, TAR Magazine and Esquire. He is the author of Stranger to History: a Son's Journey through Islamic Lands (2009) and a highly acclaimed translation Manto: Selected Stories (2008). His novel, The Temple-Goers (2010) was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award. A second novel, Noon, is now available published by Picador (UK) and Faber & Faber (USA). His work has been translated into over ten languages. He lives between London and Delhi.

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

It'd be wise of me to make this my last review of the year 2025, but no promises there. As for the piece itself, as is so often these days, I was initially drawn by the queer, but I also hoped for the sort of narrative on far flung places that I had found so much pleasure in through the likes of Calcutta and Names for the Sea: as much a ward against the boorish behavior of a future self who finally sets out, passport in hand, as a slaking of curiosity in the holes of history that, as always, deepen more quickly than I could fill them. For the most part, that is what I got, as Taseer certainly doesn't shy away from a broad spread of musing peregrinations, at least nine countries spanning four continents serving as a tableau running from suppressed religious rites to scatologically controversial perfumes. Unfortunately, the rather obtuse US propaganda shaded everything with that sort of suspect glare that "AI" is currently adulterating the art world with, and it was with some sense of hilarity watching the adjectives shift from "bureaucratic" to "revived" depending on which economic system was ravaging it. In any case, I did particularly enjoy the piece on Spain, which continues to climb ever higher in my eventual travel itinerary. So, I wish Taseer the best in his travels: he certainly knows which side of his bread is buttered, but as he is the one being paid for his writing and I am not, best to not fill this glass house with any more stones.

The ovoo is a monument to the spirits of the natural world, known here as nagas and savdags. Orgil, following the custom of honoring these easily offended beings, lest they punish you for your neglect, honked three times as we went by. "This is the Gen Z way," he said, grinning, "but I prefer the old way," which involves circling the ovoo on foot three times in a clockwise motion.

[Chaitanya Sethi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in 2019, Aatish Taseer wrote an essay in TIME Magazine regarding the prospect of a second term of the Modi led BJP government. The backlash from it led to the Government of India revoking his Overseas Citizenship of India. Forced into exile from the country where he spent his formative years, he found himself thinking about the ideas of belongingness, identity, and culture. Shaped by his extensive travels around the world, this collection of essays placed the nomadic spirit of a traveler in areas that are holding onto the idea of a long-diluted "purity" of customs that seem anachronistic with the current world.

Aatish is a well-travelled man, and the breadth of the essays highlight that in abundance. As we traverse through Turkey, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Spain, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Mongolia, Iraq and a brief stint in India, we learn how societies have morphed, cultures have been altered, traditions revised, and this idea of the preservation of something untainted has always been challenged by the human desire to wander. Yet, this fascination of retaining how things were, or used to be, endures in the hands of some families that insist upon honoring the older ways. I was drawn to this contradiction the most.

I do not share this cultural fascination of "purity" so it was jarring to me to see the sheer devotion with which some cultures stuck to their past. But even in their disparate manners, they confirmed my belief that people are the same everywhere, and that their lives hit the same notes in the octaves of life.

I will confess that my lack of knowledge of other countries and their histories impeded my joy of the book at times because information regarding customs, rulers, and geographical elements came a mile a minute, and it whooshed over my tiny brain. Had I paused to read up on the many passing references that were peppered throughout, I would have kept reading it until the end of 2025.

Anytime Aatish graced the reader with reflections from his life and childhood, he had my attention. But that is also the type of reader that I am - drawn to people's inner lives and memories on a micro level. Like Aatish, I was also very close to my Nani, and I felt for him and how deeply tragic it was that political circumstances prevented him from being present for her final moments. Yet life goes on.

[Himanshu Damle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Taseer's work on liminality, traversing the sacred (like a prosaic dirge) to gastronomy via perfumery. A travelogue filled with anxiety, a sense of loss, the book is crisp, curt and witty in spaces where one rarely gets to tread, for uncertainty of the unknown, reveals an overwhelming sense of the sublime, after only having audaciously undertaken the daring adventure that draws on spirituality. Be it the revered Lotus, or the unforgiving vastness of the alienating desert, or the rugged emptiness of Mongolia, or the trauma-inducing Shiite rituals in Najafgarh and Karbala, 'A Return to Self' is a discovery of the becoming rather than the being, in the face of adversity rooted in the politics of apathy, indifference, bigotry and divisiveness. One cannot help but feel sympathetic to the symptoms of Taseer's personal ordeal with the travails he is subjected to, specifically post the 2019 scathing 'Time' piece, but there is a branching to a multidimensionality from his Twice-Born and Stranger to History, in that A Return to Self is soul's laceration touching the chord of ubiquitous vulnerability that defines the essence of being human. This is where liminality is exposed and concealed simultaneously. A brilliant narrative of a brilliant writer, the book is everything but pusillanimous in its clarion call to sanctity (A Door to Sahara is my favourite from here). A definitive read.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile by Aatish Taseer is a deeply reflective and elegantly written memoir that merges travel narrative with philosophical inquiry. Through journeys from Turkey to Mexico, Taseer masterfully examines the fluid boundaries of belonging, identity, and displacement. His exploration of cultural intersections where ancient civilizations meet modern uncertainties gives the book a timeless quality. In weaving personal exile with broader meditations on nationality and faith, Taseer creates a work that resonates with the political, spiritual, and human dimensions of being “in between worlds.” Both intimate and intellectual, A Return to Self is a powerful contribution to the global conversation on exile, identity, and the meaning of home.

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Aatish Taseer lost his Indian Overseas Citizenship after writing a critical article on Indian PM Modi, Taseer and his editor decided he should explore other parts of the world. The essays were originally written in the NEW YORK TIMES STYLE MAGAZINE. I read the last essay on pilgrimages in Bolivia, Mongolia, and Iraq earlier in this magazine. The essays to all these places pushed Taseer to look more deeply into himself. An interesting book.

[Jenny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the fascination of the kept old-world practices and the new world of the three predominant religions was an interesting look at how pilgrimage is more about mixing two distinct ideas- the old and the new into a found journey. It's more artsy and intellectual than self-reflective but it mixes identity with the history that has oppressed that identity.

[Luella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part travelog, Part memoir. A man's search for his own peace and well being after being exiled from the country he grew up in. Beautiful descriptions of the sights, the foods, the scents and the cultures. Thank you to Goodreads Giveaways and Catapult for the book.

[Raghav Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was no causal link between the exile and the pilgrimages. Perhaps he wants to convey that exile has heightened his sensitivities and openness to experience more. But I liked the articulation and beautiful expression.

[Vaishnavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half really. The half is for Mongolia and Iraq. I wish the story telling had not been weighed down by its vocabulary. Could have been a nice 4 stars.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a neat combination of reflection post exile (thanks Modi government!) and travelogue based reflections in the immediate aftermath of exiling. Absolutely gorgeous descriptions while he's at it.