Once It Flowers

A thunderstorm blows the roof off a village school. Guruji, the schoolteacher, who lives in the school building with his family, is forced to seek shelter in the lock-up of an abandoned police station. The schoolhouse opens to the sky and this intensely poetic novel opens to the inner world of a dozen characters, Guruji, his wife, their two children, the village watchman, the tailor, the teashop owner at the railway station, the stationmaster. There is also the worldly-wise grocer, Jivrakhan and there is the grocer's wife, who listens to the radio because nothing else will fill the emptiness in her life. In the background of the bustle triggered by the storm and the arrival of the railroad, the villagers sometimes hear the elders who play the song of existence. A multi-layered, intriguing novel that is at once magical and realistic, once it Flowers is an extraordinary evocation of modern India.