The story of Arun Ferreira has four principal characters: Wife, Son, and Mother and Mother-in-law—both in their eighties. None of them will be named; their thoughts and emotions will be imagined from information gathered from diverse sources. The story has also a fifth character: Police. They arrested Arun in August 2007, booked him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on the charges of being the communication chief of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and planning to blow up the Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur, the site where Dr B R Ambedkar and his six lakh followers converted to Buddhism in 1956. They filed 10 cases against Arun, who was acquitted in each. He spent four years and eight months in jail.

On August 28, 2018, at 6 am, Police came back for Arun, knocking at the door of his fourth-floor apartment at Thane. Wife opened the door, leaving aside the breakfast she was preparing for Son, who, in his teens, had an examination to take. Police searched the apartment and seized Arun’s electronic devices. Mother-in-law, in shock, took to praying. You could say God listened to her, for the Supreme Court issued an order that Arun, along with four other activists arrested elsewhere, would be placed under house arrest until it decided on a petition filed on their behalf by five eminent personalities.