ONCE IT FLOWERS

A thunderstorm blows the roof off a village school. Guruji the school teacher who lives in the school building with his family is forced to seek shelter in an abandoned police station. The schoolhouse opens to the sky and along with it this intensely poetic novel opens up to the inner world of a dozen characters: Guruji his wife their two children the village watchman the tailor the teashop owner at the railway station and the stationmaster. There is also the worldly-wise grocer Jivrakhan and his wife who listens to the radio because nothing else will fill the emptiness in her life. A dreamlike novel that is an extraordinary evocation of modern India.