ABSTRACT
The novella narrates stories of two sets of people — an affluent Assamese Muslim family, and a group of downtrodden men and women uprooted from their land in search of a better life — and how their fortune intertwined. This chapter discusses the narration with the thought that eventually what every person seeks in his or her own life is a river — the coursing river being the metaphor for the flow of life. The Padma and the Dhaleshwari were not the only rivers of this land. The country was enmeshed in a web of rivers. A silk cotton tree had blossomed on the river bank. The colours of the flowers, the setting sun, the river and the soil on the river bank seemed to have been melded by the breeze. Those who had taken loans from Laddu Babu and Dadhi Babu at high rate of interest were renewing their struggle with life.
