I find it pleasantly surprising that even towards the end of August, I should smell of April; an April that smells of marigolds, of snow, of the river and that mountain...an April in me that smells of Caroline. Opening with these lines, the eight stories, beaded along in these pages, cover a wide range of experience of human existence from the young Raman escorting a beautiful Frenchwoman on a surprise tour without being able to speak to each other in a common language to the catharsis of the narrator under the furnace of a gaze of the tiger; loneliness as the sole companion of Anjumman Khannum to the coping of a widow with the sad truth from the past, only to save the agony of living through her remaining future. Various shades of joys and suffering of the indomitable human spirit can be seen through the scale of hopeless struggle of the temple singer against cosmic forces, and betrayal, suffering and indifference of the two worlds in The Table, and the kindling of hope in Gulmohar. The reader is treated to the falling in love of an artist with a series of images, made interesting through regularly conflicting identities in Maidens of Trafford House. The tale, merrily slow and reflective, funny and sad, ends on a note that is comforting and surprising. Chiseled over years, the stories are vivid and penetrating.