Through the Forest, Darkly

Ranjan Kaul

Aseem, naive and earnest, has just returned to Delhi to look for a job after completing his business studies. Disillusioned with his father Avinash's uninspiring life, and desperately trying to carve a path for himself independent of his overbearingly interfering aunt Menaka and her ad-man husband, Aseem finds himself drawn to Swati, a Maoist sympathizer working in Delhi's slums. As his life takes one surprising turn after another Aseem comes face to face with a Maoist revolutionary and an adivasi commander fighting a covert battle in the forests of Bastar, discovers facets of his father's past that he could not have imagined, and finds himself working with Menaka and her husband to market a godman. Rich in vivid imagery Through the Forest, Darkly is an uncompromising yet poignant description of love and ideals betrayed by violence and cruelty and a society torn apart by irreconcilable divides.