A slim novella that manages to convey a wealth of emotions and circumstances surrounding the lives of Jamuna and her sister Chaya. Set in Madras in the late 60s during a drought, the novel depicts in its few pages the hardship of day-to-day living. It is unexpectedly feminist in its frank depiction of the kind of stigma and abuse women endured for having the audacity to exist as a person instead fulfilling the only two prescribed roles of wife and mother. ( )