A Final Homecoming is a biography of Bhai Pratap (1908–1967), an eminent Sindhi industrialist who participated in India’s fight for freedom against British rule. The book revolves around the brutal partition of India by the British, an act that displaced 20 million people and rendered millions into refugees overnight. Bhai Pratap was responsible for rehabilitating thousands of Sindhi refugees arriving in India after the Partition of 1947.

The book, written by his daughter, is as much a memoir and historical document as it is a biography. Archival materials like maps, photographs and video footage along with family letters and antiquarian books were used to create the graphic elements. The typography paid homage to the book’s multilingual context and Bhai Pratap’s globefaring life.

The design elements took inspiration from the frisson of binaries—the partition of India, a life lived between two countries, two languages, two professions, and the unending trauma of being cast out of one’s homeland.

Indian states were created on linguistic lines but Sindhi is the only official language of India that does not have a corresponding state. To pay homage to this great chasm in the Sindhi psyche, we employed the Sindhi language and numerals as a design element. The visual architecture of tiles—evoking home and homelessness—was inspired from archival footage of Bhai Pratap’s original haveli in Karachi.

We were also commissioned to design and print a Hindi translation of the book to widen the book’s reach. We worked with translator Nandini Patodia and edited and designed it in-house.