Placard Holder in the Pass

<p>Keshav an itinerant worker finds himself stranded in a small town in a mountain pass delivered there accidentally by a truck driver who was a regular there. Locals bring him to the town eatery where he encounters Aziz the friendly proprietor of the place. There he finds a home and a strange calling: standing by the highway and holding a placard advertising the presence of the eatery. </p><p>Keshav befriends Kili an inhabitant of the surrounding hills—before reappearing with his stunning bride Chameli. He also meets a wide variety of people—White a doctor with an ornithological slant of mind who traverses the pass regularly; his faithful driver Babu; and Keith a decaying long-term resident of the pass who tried unsuccessfully to live with Tina his sister in the UK. The moodiness of the unique weather and topography of the pass remains a constant backdrop as Chameli’s disillusionment with Keshav grows in the presence of other ardent admirers. Keith finds himself battling depression and alcoholism despite White’s attempts to help him; Kili too suddenly disappears.                                                             Gradually the lives of those around Keshav—those who chose the pass as their home perhaps not as a matter of choice but more due to compulsion—begin to disintegrate.</p><p>In this novel a migrant worker builds a new life for himself in a small mountain town only to see it fall apart amidst love betrayal and sorrow.</p>