Written in 1961, ‘In and Around the Marketplace’ tells the story of Sadashiv, an idealistic doctor, who decides to spend his retirement healing the poor in a small-town in Bihar. But Sadashiv is no ordinary Good Samaritan. Slowly, he comes to be at one with the people he helps. Rejoicing in their happiness and grieving in their sorrow. And on the way, as he goes from market to market, from bazaar to bazaar, seeing to his rustic patients and mixing with them as only a true friend can, we encounter an amazing gallery of character. Bonophul sketches each of them in vivid tones, sometimes with a touch of humour, sometimes with a hint of pathos, but always with great humanism. The good, the bad, and the ugly-they are all there in this story, and set against the backdrop of Sadashiv’s clear-eyed altruism, they offer a picture of India as it was in the first few years after independence.
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