Banwari Lal, the family patriarch, is a survivor of India s partition who reinvented the family business destroyed in Lahore. He is a firm believer in the continuity of time-honoured customs. With each generation, however, the tradition he embodies is questioned. His sons Yashpal and Pyarelal are the uncertain bearers of the family s future, the reluctant witnesses to their children s struggle with aspirations that are unique from their own. Nisha, Yashpal s daughter, becomes the first woman in the family to acquire higher education. She comes to represent the uneasy coexistence of tradition and modernity that defines this extraordinary novel.