It is the time for both apprehension and hope. The youthful narrator Ravi witnesses the change in a way of life and the end of a way of thinking. The story depicts the experiences of an immigrant community in Peninsular Malaysia before and after Independence in 1957. It documents the bewilderment and loss of bearings felt within a once secure world coming to an end in political change and cultural fragmentation. Ravi attempts to come to terms with himself by sustaining the classical Hindu virtues of spiritual proportion, harmony and grace, and avoiding the decay of ethnic civilisation through his pursuit of social mobility.