The second section of the novel entitled “Coming Home” begins in the year 1962, and Tha’mma opens the door of her grown-up home in Dhaka to the narrator as well as to the reader, sitting at the new home in Southern Avenue with the distaste of the retirement days. It was a big joint family with parents, grandparents, Mayadebi, father’s older brother, Jethamoshai and his family. Meanwhile, the death of grandpa leads to the failure of Jethamoshai as a leading patriarch of the family and they divide the house with a ‘wooden partition wall’ between the two brothers. After her marriage, she has returned to Dhaka twice and the partition (1947) made her stuck at Calcutta. She has not met Jethamoshai and her aunt since then. Tha’mma is again ready to meet Jethamoshai, who lives still in that old house with the help of refugee Muslims from India.
All of a sudden, narrator drips into the memory of a pornographic letter of Tridib to May and she lies to her mother that the letter is an invitation to India. After this, narrator reveals Mayadebi’s letter to Tha’mma by inviting her to Dhaka. Father arranges plane ticket to Dhaka on third January, 1964. She enquires whether she can see the border line between India and East Pakistan from the plane. As part of entering another country, East Pakistan, she was instructed to fill the columns of nationality, date of birth, and place of birth. This made her eyes widen in embarrassment, pushing her over to the state of in between ‘coming home’ or ‘going home’. Later, she gets a letter from Mayadebi informing that May will visit her at Dhaka. Tridib announces his plan to be with Tha’mma and May in Dhaka. Narrator often slips into the memory of May, Tridib, Ila’s wedding, and his visit to London. All of a sudden, narrator remembers May’s first visit to India and her wanderings here. Instantly, he remembers ila and their meeting after her marriage. She tells the story of Nick Price and Magda. Meanwhile, Mayadebi writes to Tha’mma informing her that she has not been to the ancestral house yet and she has met a mechanic named Saifuddin who lives in the house at present. Tha’mma along with May, Tridib and Robi leave for Dhaka. At this time, exemplifying narrator's remark, the ‘city had turned against them’ the city of Calcutta witness a mutiny in 1964.
Years later, Robi shares their Dhaka experience with the narrator. Before they meet Jethamoshai, they meet Saifuddin and Khalil, a ‘rikshawala’, the one who takes care of Jethamoshai and all of them visit Jethamoshai. He could not recognize Tha’mma and Mayadebi. He ignores Tha’mma and talks to May. Suddenly, the driver notices trouble in the street and informs them. They leave the house and Khalil follows them with the old man in rickshaw. Back in Calcutta, narrator remarks the riot of 1964 while his friend Malik is unaware of it and neglects it characterizing it as local. To prove Malik wrong, narrator reaches to the old newspaper and books. But the riot has been disappeared from the books along with a small piece of news column in the January 11th paper. Slowly, narrator realizes that the riot had broken out the day after Tha’mma left.
Narrator finds that Tha’mma has donated her favorite chain to fund the war. This makes him weary and his mother consoles him telling Tha’mma is very interested in the war with Pakistan from Tridib’s death onwards. This shakes narrator’s belief that Tridib met with his death in a car accident. May and Rubi tell him the truth that Tridib died in the riot of 1964 while they were returning from their ancestral home. One of the rioters attack the windshield of the car they are travelling and the rioters turn toward the rickshaw when a security personnel shoots. May approaches rickshaw calling them (Robi and Tridib) cowards. Tridib runs after her and Robi fails to make him stay in the car. In their last dinner at London, May confesses to the narrator that she rushed towards the rickshaw like a heroine while Tridib pushed her down and reached there and tried to rescue Jethamoshai out of the mob, but the mob surrounded them. Tridib, Khalil and Jethamoshai lay there when the mob relinquishes from the scene.
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