Set in Gandhi's volatile India, the story opens with Anjali, aged eighteen, about to be burnt alive on her husband's funeral pyre - the conventional widow's fate.After a dramatic escape, things go badly wrong and she embarks on an extraordinary, often terrifying, journey of discovery.Saleem, Anjali's childhood friend, is entwined in her destiny. As he searches for her, he is caught up in the violence surrounding India's struggle for freedom.At the heart of this fast-moving narrative is the love of two men for one woman.