Delhi, 1997: It is India's 50th year of independence, the year of Hindu Nationalists and atomic bombs. But 12-year-old Adi has a bigger problem: his Ma has gone missing - again. Left with an ailing grandmother, a raging father and no answers, he finds an unlikely ally: a talking vulture who reveals himself to be a bureaucrat from the 'Department of Historical Adjustment'. The Department holds Adi's family files, which he must unlock in order to take a journey through time and memory, through fifty years of India's history, revealing the darkest secrets of his mother's past, in a challenge requiring Adi to face his greatest fears.
As bright and hopeful as it is devastating, Remember, Mr Sharma explores the ways in which we view the past, its inescapable hold over us and the stories we tell ourselves to create our present.
A. P. Firdaus has been writing advertisements by day and fiction by night for over a decade, in Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore and London. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, where he was awarded an International Excellence Scholarship. He was born in India and currently lives in Berlin. Remember, Mr Sharma is his first novel.