Book excerpt: Santosh, a young engineering graduate, goes from a city to his backward, native village in Thanjavur, South India, to start a small manufacturing factory and farm his ancestral lands. Set in the mid-1970s, the story describes Santosh's serious and humorous interactions with the local folk and their idiosyncrasies, his attempts at farming, the obstacles he faces from the local authorities, the machinations of his dishonest caretaker Govindraj who has been looking after his family's property for many years and embezzling their money and how Santosh struggles to cope with the various adverse situations that continually confront and challenge him.