Paar – ‘mirage’ country, where it is often impossible to draw the line between reality and illusion – has been suffering from a decade-long drought. Jasoda is one of the last to leave this ‘arse-end of the world’ with her children and mother-in-law. Since her husband claims he has important work to do for the local prince, Jasoda must make the journey to the city by the sea on her own. Even as she builds a life for herself and her children in the city, Paar seems poised to take off after years of anonymity. Will Jasoda return home with her children? Or stay in the city that’s become home for them?
It’s taken for granted that epic journeys and epics were possible only during the time of the Mahabharata, the Odyssey or the Iliad. Even more to the point, their heroes had to, perforce, be men. The eponymous Jasoda of the novel is about to prove how wrong the assumptions are. Kiran Nagarkar’s trenchant narrative traces the journey of a woman of steely resolve and gumption making her way through an India that is patriarchal, feudal, seldom in the news, and weighed down by dehumanizing poverty.