A powerful, evocative story of love, ambition, the old city of Bangalore and the new city of Bengali.thippy, the beautiful ‘girl from the Outhouse’. ashwath, only son of a feudal family of landowners. A love that could never be blessed by destiny. Disillusioned by his family rejection of his love for thippy, stifled by its traditions and conservative ways, ashwath leaves Bangalore for a University town in American Midwest. It is 1981, and the American economy is booming.

Ashwath enjoys the three C’s of success: a condominium, a car and a credit card. But a decade later, when the market crashes, he sees the other side of the American dream—joblessness, dingy one-room tenements and loneliness. Casting its shadow over it all is br>Neel Kamal, his family sprawling bungalow in Bangalore, now a piece of prime real estate. Ashwath is compelled to return after twenty-five years to lay claim to his inheritance. In doing so, he has to once again face tangled relationships his sister, br>Savitri, her ne’er-do-well husband, Keshav, his first love thippy—and the ghosts of his parents who died without ever seeing him again. He also finds love of a different kind, through his fun-loving niece, Shweta, and his intense, idealistic nephew, aprameya. Finally, it is br>Neel Kamal that decides what he must do.