Hartosh Singh Bal
HarperCollins India
272 pages, Rs 499
It is at the Narmada that the agriculturist first encountered the forest dweller, the Indo-European north faced the Dravidian south, the Afghan battled the Gond and the dam builders confronted the environmentalists. As the author seeks to understand these dualities, the stories he encounters take on a life of their own—from Osho’s relatives who still safeguard his memory in sari shops to the king of a small island who spends moonlit nights firing bullets into the river.