This is a story of a student sandwiched between two teachers - one first-rater (highly creative and original) and the other a second-rater (average, parasitic but ambitious.). The story runs in the form of a diary written as an honest confession by the second-rater teacher.
The title of the Gujarati version – Angad No Pag - draws its name from the story of Angad, Ram’s emissary to the courts of Ravana, in the epic Hindu scripture, Ramayana. When all efforts made by Angad to make Ravan understand the futility of a war with Ram fail, he proposes that if anyone can move his feet even by a bit, he will go back and inform Ram to withdraw from the battlefield. No one in the entire court of Ravan is able to even shake Angad’s Leg from where he had anchored it at on the floor.
The title of English translation – The Salt of Earth - draws its inspiration from a biblical quote (Mathew 5.13) - "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored...?” The criticality of use of the salt in the human life, as may be evident in this quote, may seem to be in conflict with many other rather negative-shaded uses of the word, salt. However, the sense of sustained 'excellence' that salt brings in with its existence is with reference to the value that the very presence, or otherwise, of the salt makes to any of its inherent use. This is reflected in other old phrases too, for example, the aristocratic and powerful of the earth were 'above the salt' and valued workers were 'worth their salt'.