ABOUT
THE BOOK

Family destiny can hang from the slenderest of threads. For Ismet Nassim, a clerk of modest prospects and generous girth from Bombay, everything turns on the moment when, from the window of the train on which he happens to be sitting comfortably, he spies a young woman standing next to a village well – not just any woman but the most beautiful woman in the world.

Should he pull down the shade and resume his quiet bachelor ways, his placid existence of ledgers and balance sheets? Or throw caution to the wind and pursue this creature, about whom he knows nothing whatsoever? Of course, fate forces him off the train. Ismet pursues his vision of beauty, whose name is Khateja, and marries her the very next day. Destiny (and, as it turns out, Khateja’s own family) heaves a sigh of relief.
Ismet, however, is in for the fight of his life. Though she agrees to marry this baggy, shambling clerk, Khateja also resolves to make his life as miserable as possible, informing him even before they exchange vows that love and obedience will play no part in this arrangement. Thrown together so in what seems a hilariously awkward misalliance of spirits and souls, a weary but determined Ismet and the fiercely eloquent Khateja forge their way ahead.