This is a coming-of-age story of a teenage boy who undergoes great mental suffering and emotional turmoil as sudden catastrophic events in his life force him into an early adulthood. Set in the latter half of the nineteen eighties, the story revolves around the main character, Aditya and his family. It speaks of their hopes and aspirations, their fears and insecurities and their vulnerability in the face of sudden unforeseen disasters. Aditya lives with his family in a working-class neighbourhood in a small industrial town in eastern India where violence is a part of life. He is repressed both at home and at school. All these have a deep impact on his mind. He is torn by inner conflicts as he grapples with the fears and insecurities in his life. He seeks solace in religious literature and happiness in the company of friends. Buoyed by the rising fortunes of the father, the family move into their newly constructed house in a respectable neighbourhood of the town. But the shadow of violence, under which they had lived for years, threatens to spread to their new home and wipe out the peace of their lives. But they manage to come out of the crisis with the help of a friend and settle down to a quiet life in their new home. Things are looking up for Aditya. He has finished high school and he feels that the restrictions on him are easing. He feels on top of the world. His confidence grows. He feels that he is free from past fears and insecurities. His father tries to make amends for his harsh treatment of him in the past by being friendly to him, but he, trapped in past hurt, cannot get himself to open out to him. Just when he prepares himself to soar on the wings of his new-found confidence and dreams, disaster, the forebodings of which had often filled him with dread in the recent past, strikes in the form of an accident, which claims the life of his father and sends the family reeling to the brink of financial disaster and ruin. With his world turned upside down, he tries to come to grips with the new reality of hopelessness and despair. With his father dead and gone, he feels responsible for his mother's and his brother's well being. As he and his mother and brother struggle to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of life, clutching whatever straw of help that come their way, Aditya is at his wits' end trying to figure out how to survive on a pittance and pay for his brother's and his own education. He is constantly plagued by money worries. He visits his ancestral home in his native village in the hope of getting support from his family but returns empty handed. His maternal uncle moves into the house with his family to support him and his mother and brother financially but the arrangement turns out to be a disaster with Aditya and his mother and brother feeling like refugees in their own home. Pinning his hopes on his academic success, Aditya struggles to drag himself and his family out of the quagmire of despair and despondency as feelings of insecurity haunt and torment him each step of the way.
