On holiday from boarding school young Ishvaku is fascinated by the bedtime story his mother relates to himthat of the warrior Ashwatthama from the Mahabharata whose blind vengeance provokes a curse from Lord Krishna forcing him to wander the earth in eternal suffering But the story is interrupted by a bandit raid in which Ishvakus mother is killed and Ishvaku is packed off to his ancestral village in the Chambal Valley ravines of Central India There he discovers a family in crisis whose rituals traditions and orthodox feudal values are becoming redundant Meanwhile Ishvakus own life take a strange turn as a visiting sacred bull predicts that both wisdom and tragedy will soon come to him In anticipation of such tragedy Ishvaku attempts to escape into the magical realm of Ashwatthama
