Lanterns on Their Horns
"A young idealist...an honourable headman faced with the winds of change...a daughter determined to re-establish her father's honour." "Change does not come easily to the central Indian village of Nandgaon. The headman, Gopal Mundkur, fears it: he suspects that change will bring with it the destruction of the fragile harmony which he feels binds Nandgaon and its people together. Manoj Mishra, a failed PhD in history, believes he has found the solution to rural India's poverty. He will let nothing and no one stop him. When Laxmi, the college educated daughter of a 'suicide farmer' and Ramu, the village simpleton with a way with animals, fall reluctantly in love, that love gives birth to a miracle." "Little by little, these four every different people become embroiled in an epic confrontation in which what is at stake is the identity of India itself." --Book Jacket.