Synopsis High decibel clashes between political factions, wordy-and sometimes bloody-duels between personality cults, touchingly grandiose attempts to resurrect a glorious ‘Tamil’ past, voluble, but feeble assaults on entrenched traditions of inequality, and stirring professions of commitment to nation-building…These have dominated the Tamil Nadu scene for the past half century.But decades of industrialisation and urbanization have uprooted millions, provided all too few niches of opportunity and led many individuals and groups into virtual dead ends. This is the backdrop of this deceptively simple but deeply unsettling novel, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1998.