This is a collection of stories that span the lives of women and girls caught in the snare of history and society. The travails of the partition of the Indian sub-continent, a neoliberal India, non-resident joys and fears, and also coming of age in surroundings that are familiar or held hostage to a politics of fear – these are the themes subtly addressed in this volume. There are also stories about men searching for identity and justice, as well as ideal and memory – their portrait framed all along by the normative environment around.