Synopsis The selection, and its arrangement, provides a fascinating overview of the historical vicissitudes forced on a state and its people largely because of its strategic geographic position in the subcontinent. Through the eyes of these sensitive writers, belonging to all shades of political ideology, we get glimpses of an industrious, hardworking people blessed to be living in this fertile land. The women protagonists in many stories are torch-bearers of liberalism, far from the stereotypes who submit meekly to either convention or the pressures of a patriarchal society.