 It elegantly portrays the decisions and sacrifices made by different people in a family and the frictions and the frustrations thereby.It also portrays the struggle of the newer generation in order to move into an atomic family structure from a strictly hierarchical joint family structure where even the elders have an even more elderly person who dictate the terms.The novel talks about Jamun, a work less young man and his old father, Shyamanand, his dying mother, Urmila.