A young girl with myriad questions, her grandfather who hears voices of the dead and his house which has a mind of its own. In a quiet little village by the Arabian Sea lives a family trapped in a whirlpool of passions.
Maya, lively and curious finds her world limiting to the imagination. Her quest for answers is unending, sometimes silly, often profound, but no doubt strangely perceptive. The village agrees that she is an extension of her grandfather and his house which, defying convention, stands on a mound of earth very close to the sea.
The old man is haunted by a legendary treasure which brought him wealth and the arrogance to defy death. The fate of that treasure and the house that is pinning his soul to its walls has been the subject of speculations in the neighbourhood for many years. Fading reality and stories haunt him, like the birth of the village, hearsay of a time when it had rained for twenty-one days and a new land created from the destruction of the existing one.
The house by the sea is disturbed. It has to find a path of release both for itself and its creator. Something unspoken is slowly breaking its stony heart.
The rest of the family is tossing among other unresolved issues – the fate of an unborn child, a mismatched marriage and a sensuous gypsy who outstays her visit.
A gentle tale of desires, illusions and fantasy, the book is a journey into the depths of human nature.
Publishers: Indialog Publications. 2003.
Excerpt:Chapter 1
Review: “A grippingly haunting tale of a house that wrestles with the forces of God” – Deccan Herald