A teashop in Kamalapura overflows with the lives, squabbles and sounds of its neighbourhood.

Tansen sorely regrets abandoning his gifted son Bilas Khan in a story set in the Mughal court.

A doting father sacrifices his children's happiness to serve the cruel demands of his upper-caste master.

An India almost unknown to us floods the pages of this significant series of short stories sourced from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

Ringing with the music of India's regional languages, and peppered with wit and social commentary, these stories are windows to the past and its people-the everyday struggles and joys; the ties of friendship and faith; the politics of love and rejection; the intricacies of betrayal and envy; and the conflicts of class and caste-while continuing to be relevant to our present, puncturing the boundaries of time and space.

How much has Indian society changed?

How much of it has not?