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 contemporary: 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?