The Colour of Dawn

The Colour of Dawn is about a woman’s struggle to bury a past that crowds into her present. It is about an unfulfilled love that turns vindictive. It deals with the dark, morbid obsessions of a man who waits twenty-five years to take his revenge and a young couple, trying to bridge the chasm, who are caught in the vortex of his vengeance. The novel is an exploration of a hot and sultry cauldron of cultures awaiting the rain, after a series of nuclear blasts raised tensions between two rival countries. It is about a time when Mumbai was still Bombay and living was governed by the 8.17 and 9.13 suburban trains. It is, above all, about a numbing fear that grows out of an oppressive love and flares up every time a voice from the past echoes, "I will destroy everything that is yours, Sita…You will rue the day you said no to me. With a powerful blend of irony, drama and pathos Janaki Murali delineates the universal nature of fear and its effect on human lives and destinies and leaves you wondering whether love can be so crippling.