SHARMA, PARTAP

Futura 1988 384pSider. Paperback. Nice copy Balbir is the youngest member of a wealthy Punjabi family, the descendant of a great Brahmin warrior dynasty. In the Punjab the family counts for everything. Balbir's grandfather Lok Raj, still holds patriarchal sway over his extended family and their lands. Over-educated and bored with life in a Punjabi village, Balbir want only to escape, to get away from the demands of his ever-present family. Most of all he would like to follow his glamorous elder brother Raskaan, who has escaped to Europe and become westernised and rich, a businessman in Berlin. Searching for adventure and trying to raise the money to finance his escape, Balbir becomes entangled with local gunrunners. Venturing into the Golden Temple at Amritsar with a message for the Sikh extremists who have fortified it, he is held hostage to ensure that his cousin Satyavan will provide the arms the movement needs. But the family rallies round and the patriarch plots to rescue his beloved grandson. Days of the Turban presents a picture of Indian society from the inside. It shows a country in transition, where the old values are under attack from new ideas but where, in the end, the traditions and ways of life of the past still have their place.