Nambisan takes us into the heart of small-town India and into theives of everyday people, where everything is extraordinary. So why have they come, why did they choose Pingakshipura of all places. Are they seeking or are they running away? Nourishing myself with bidi fumes, I watch,isten and think. I want to know. Pingakshipura where the water runs a poisonous black and the hair on every child's head is white and yet, it is a village-turned-townike any other in India, where everyife hides a story. Reclining on her thin mattress in a room at the corner of the temple, Rajakumari, retired whore andong-time resident of the town, shares with us some of these stories. Of Saroja and Sampathu, unlikelyovers and parents who have both fled scenes of murder. Of Kripa and Manohar, the childless couple discovering something new about each other afterong years of marriage. Ofectric Mamu, injured by the infidelity of the one woman who is immune to his charms. Of Gundumani, the boy with the crookedeg and his almost-sister, Rukmini. Of the temple priest, one-time servant of the red-eyed Pingakshi, who birthed the town's new divinity Sugandha Enterprises. In her seventh novel, Kavery Nambisan takes us again, with great sensitivity and fierce clarity, into the heart of rural and small-town India and into theives of everyday people, where everything is extraordinary.