What this novel does superbly is that it takes its readers smack in the middle of village life and raises a few questions that continue to remain relevant after almost eight decades of freedom from the colonial yoke.

Many girls in this village were married off early, much before they reached the legal age for the act, and not just among the poor and low caste people, this was the norm even among the rich and the upper caste.

I hope this story about wishing happiness and success for our progeny gets transmitted from body to body, blood to blood, mind to mind.’

Someone had said that it was never good for the village and the river to have the same name, verging on terrible some others said, that it never boded well for the village.

Rosie put down her tea cup and fiddled with the sugar-free biscuits. She wondered if that was all for dinner. She grew restless at the constant drone of the beetle and the frogs and paced around the terrace.