It is the late 1990s, a few years into constitutional democracy in Nepal, and the government has collapsed in Khaireni Tas, small town on the Kathmandu Pokhara highway, four separate lives corce together during the campaign for fresh elections. Kishi Parajdi, a diallusioned communist who gives private tuitions in history, Giridhat Adhila, an alcoholic who is the chairman of the People's Parry's district committer Om Gung, a large-hearted former British Gurkha and Binita Dahal. a reclusive young widow who wins a tea stall near the town's only his sop, Asti elections approach, and the crises in their lives mount, they must choose not only for their catastry, but aho for their own individual futures

Manjushree Thapa has woven a splendid tale of how the pris and energy of multiparty politics his serped into the lowest levels of Nepall society. An irresistible saga of contemporary Nepal achare it is often difficult to separate the political frim the personal Nepali Times