A village in Saurashtra. A family of three generations. A world that will not wait.

Keshav Patel is seventy-two, a retired engineer who built check dams across Saurashtra. On the otla of his house in Sonpar, he tells his grandchildren what science has learned about the Earth, the stars and ourselves.

But the world keeps arriving at Sonpar's gate: a quarrel over one metre of land beside the old well, a granddaughter who chooses her own husband, a horoscope hidden in a cupboard, a young relative sent back from America in chains, and Raja, the last bullock in the village.

A novel of one joint family meeting the twenty-first century, and of the choices that decide whether a village moves forward together.

Its companion book is At the Crossroads: A Common Person's Guide to Life's Big Choices.