Summary:
A man famous in business circles as someone who is morally upright reveals to the world that he has a son outside his marriage. The story begins with the son entering the business man's household and as the story progresses the son's relationship with the other family members are explored. Each character tries to find salvation, redemption and happiness after various interactions and circumstances which adds complexity to their already messy lives.
About Title:
The title has no religious afflictions to the story. There are no spiritual values attached. It is an allegory which denotes the devaluation of humanity, morality and the fundamental values on which the society is built. The sanctity of the premise is lost and the title reflects that.
Characters:
Shashank Gupta is an industrialist who is into steel manufacturing business. He has a wide network of friends in various streams - politicians to media barons, bureaucrats to lobbyists. He along with his family lives outside the city in a farmhouse built in traditional architecture. He has a passion for antiques and fine liquor.
His daughter Anjali Gupta is a doctor who works with a local NGO and is married to Atul Joshi. Atul is a metallurgist who works in R&D at Shashank's industry. Atul is an orphan who was adopted by Shashank's friend when he was young. Atul is unaware of the fact that he is adopted.
Padma is the late mother of Anjali. Her death was rumored to be suicide and no one besides Shashank knows the truth behind her death. It was however evident that she hated her husband in her last days as she was made aware of the affair he had.
Rahul is Shashank's brother's son who grew up along with Anjali. Shashank's brother ran away from the house when Rahul was very young. Rahul's mother was an actress who was involved in a scandal which tore the family apart and everyone believes that it was the reason why his father had to run away. His mother committed suicide not able to withstand public scrutiny and everyone acting like moral police around her. He is a MBA graduate, soft spoken and a brilliant entrepreneur. The industry believes that Rahul might be next heir to Gupta Steels.
Muskaan is a journalist and a budding economist, daughter of a media baron who owns couple of television channels and a newspaper. She meets Rahul in a seminar and instantaneously likes him and befriends him. She ends up being good friends with the Guptas.
Abhimanyu Modi and Nikita Modi are the golden couple of entertainment industry. Abhimanyu Modi is rumored to be the alleged son of Rahul's mother and his birth was the root cause of the scandal she was involved in.
Riddhima is the daughter of an ambassador who is currently posted in Eastern Europe. She refused to continue her education after finishing twelfth grade. She lives with Shashank as her father travels all around the world and whose lifestyle is not acceptable by her standards. She lost her mother when she was a baby and doesn't get along well with her father. She has lived with Shashank, her father's best friend for past decade and considers his family as hers. No one knows the reason why she quit studying but everyone knew that she was extremely brilliant with a high IQ. She is either reading something or learning a new language. Her one of the passion is statistics and Shashank relies on her to provide statistical data for various reasons; groW*H of iron ore mining in a specific locality in a specific year or people who prefer broccoli versus spinach.
Armaan Mallik is Shashank's son. His mother's name is
Lakshmi who died when he was seven years old. He was aware of his father's
predicament and never blamed his father or mother for the situation he was in.
He met his father for the first time when his mother died. He is soft spoken,
intelligent and lives with a definitive set of moral values which he abides. Riddhima constantly challenges his values and his view on morality and they debate relentlessly. He is aware of the polite indifference that Guptas' show him and the collective disregard for his presence only makes him question their beliefs.
Story premise:
The story revolves around these characters where
each person lives by their own moral grounds. Over the course of time, their
individual beliefs are questioned. Their thoughts and actions are validated
against the world's morality; the same world where in the meaning of morality
itself is getting skewed due to rejection of absolute values and constantly devolving moral objectives.
As the story progresses each character gets into a situation where they are forced to reevaluate their values in which they believe in and discover that morality is a dying trend but there are still some people left whose values are still intact. Not all revelations end in happy note but not all of them depressing either.
Chapter Index:
Chapter 2: Polite indifference hurts more than thousand needle pricks -- Page 8 -- 18 June 2010
Chapter 3: Not utilizing one's intelligence for the betterment of the society is deemed selfish? -- Page 12 -- 27 June 2010
Chapter 4: Invitations out for the party -- Page 15 -- 11 July 2010
Chapter 5: No legacy is worse than burdening sins of our father -- Page 20 -- 09 Aug 2010
Chapter 6: From A to B and back again -- Page 25 -- 05 Dec 2010
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