It's true what they say - it's not we who control money, it's the money that controls us. When there's only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.'

From a cramped, ant-infested house to a spacious bungalow, a family finds itself making a transition in many ways. The narrator, a sensitive young man, is numbed by the swirl around him. All he can do is flee every day to an old-world cafe, where he seeks solace from an oracular waiter. As members of the family realign their equations and desires, new strands are knotted, others come apart, and conflict brews dangerously in the background.

Masterfully translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur, Ghachar Ghochar is a suspenseful, playful and ultimately menacing story about the shifting consequences of success.

About the Author

Vivek Shanbhag writes in Kannada. He has published five short-story collections, three novels and two plays, and edited two anthologies, one of which is in English. Srinath Perur writes on a variety of subjects, especially travel or science. He is the author of the travelogue If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai (Penguin India, 2013). He lives in Bangalore.