Book excerpt: Senthil, a young and idealistic Indian Forest Service officer from Chennai gets posted to Central India. He is soon exposed to the corruption in the government departments, shady senior officers, mining mafia, naxal menace and human-elephant conflict. When his honesty comes in direct confrontation with the politics of postings and transfers, Senthil is slowly and surely tested. Working in rural hinterlands, he is shocked to see the misery of the tribals, crushed between the naxals and the police. It is not long before he discovers the cruel hollowness of the Maoist ideology. Senthil witnesses the tragedy of elephant menace and much to his heartburn a rogue tusker is marked to be eliminated. Wherever he is posted, Senthil manages to rub the political leaders the wrong way and is shunted out from one post to another. Will he be able to stick to his principles? Will he get support from his superiors? Will his wife Manjula stand by him?