Charming and cultivated, Nirmala's only sin is her failure to get a husband who would accept her without a dowry. She is married off to a widower... This novel captures the depth of suffering of the characters Nirmala comes in contact with, and yet the book does not fall into melodrama that would have happened with any lesser writer. The realistic dramatisation of the family events is peculiarly Indian, but based on universal human experience, transcending geographical boundaries and barriers of culture.