Shakuntala Bharvani’s story of a thirty-six-year-old woman, widowed at an early age and a Reader in English, presents a protagonist in whom are blended innocence and naivete with an urge for independence and feminist ideas. Sangeeta Chainani is banished by her aristrocratic Sindhi family to the quiet ashram of Dukh Door, a Gandhian haven of simple living and high thinking, where, they hope, she will pursue her doctoral dissertation on Dorothy Richardson and forget her love affair with Iqbal, a divorced Muslim dentist. But matters other than literature and the quiet life keep intruding—her childhood memories, the stories of Sind and its folk tales narrated to her by elderly relations—as Bharvani presents a cross-section of Indian society with a touch of satire and humour.