Playing Fields in Winter

Sarah Livingstone and Ravi Kaul meet at Oxford. She is English, sensing a chance to evade the pattern of conventional middle-class life to which her experience has so far conformed. The more sophisticated Indian, Ravi, also wishes to sample another way of life - if only temporarily. Against a quintessential Oxford background of gloomy winters and hesitant summers, of tea and ginger-nuts eaten beside electric bar fires, of other people’s lovemaking overheard through thin walls, of sherry parties and suicide attempts, of girls in long cotton skirts and evening punting expeditions, their affair blossoms for two academic years. Until the inevitable time when Ravi must depart for Lucknow, Sarah for job-hunting in London - and their expectations clash head on.