Parvati is young, beautiful and seemingly doomed; blooming early yet unable to find lasting love. Orphaned in adolescence and adopted by her headmaster uncle, Parvati escapes the constraints of this temporary home but, like many young women before her, finds a new prison in marriage. For, while there is passion to be found in early encounters, she is soon married to someone she can never truly be satisfied with. So when Mukul Nainwal, the local boy who has always loved her, returns to Nainital, he finds Parvati changed—she is a new challenge to his ideals, despite all his worldly success.

The tale of these two exiles is a study in unrequited love, with its terrible irony and tragic urgency. Here is a master class in the vagaries of the human heart, from a fine novelist who understands its workings better than anyone else.

All Editions

Paperback, 7th Edition

ISBN13: 9780143028727

PenguinÂ Books, 2002

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