This novel traces two intertwining paths: the twists and turns of the momentous events over 1928-1948 culminating in Independence and Partition, and the fortunes of young Gaurav Bhimani, who makes it his life's work to record the events in a magnum opus. Gaurav's life, like India's, moves from crisis to crisis to a refuge, and a romantic interlude, in his Karla farm, while his book ranges from the battalefields of Burma to a bitter-sweet finale on Independence Day.