Content Warning: This section of the guide describes the novel’s treatment of sexual assault, death by suicide, and caste-based discrimination against the Dalit people. This section also cites the novel’s use of an offensive term for sex workers.

The narrator reflects on his chosen role as a vanaprastha, which translates as “someone who has retired to the forest to reflect” (1). He was once a respected bureaucrat, but he decided to become the manager at a small rest house on the Narmada River after his wife’s death, shocking his colleagues.

The rest house, which is meant for traveling pilgrims, is built in the Mughal architecture style, but it also has some lingering marks of British rule with its portico and Victorian-style plaster. The narrator’s clerk, Mr. Chagla, lives in the nearby town of Rudra, below which is a temple town called Mahadeo, which also shelters pilgrims. Pilgrims and religious persons in Mahadeo often light diyas or clay lamps and float them on the river; the narrator thinks the light from the numerous diyas makes the river look like it is on fire. The source of the river, Amarkantak, is a holy place for worshippers of Shiva, a Hindu ascetic god.