Padmashree Narendra Kohli is one of the most eminent and well-known Hindi writers of our times. His novel based on the Ram-Katha, Abhyuday, shifted the course of Hindi novel-writing. Another of his novels, Mahasamar, based on the Pandava-katha went on to become just as popular. His novel-series, Todo Kara Todo is considered the greatest and foremost novel in any language on the life of Swami Vivekananda. Abhigyan, Vasudev, Sharnam, Aatmaswikriti, Varunaputri, Sagar-Manthan, Ahalya etc. are his other well-known works. Apart from the Padmashree, he has also been awarded the Hindi Akademi award; Delhi Salaka Samman; Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthaan award; Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Samman, Lucknow; K.K. Birla Foundation award; Vyasa Samman, New Delhi; Madhya Pradesh government and Bhopal's Maithili Sharan Gupt Rashtriya Samman, among numerous other honours.The stories in this collection explore the building and breaking of human relationships with great dexterity. It talks about times when circumstances cause us to feel alienated from our own kin ... when there occurs such a void in time that after years when one goes to his old town, he does not chance upon his old lover ... when the children whose mothers and fathers spend all their lives making sacrifices for so they could achieve their dreams, find themselves being starved by them in their old-age and incapacity; the wife who keeps finding ways to get her husband to work ... but when his tendency to stand by what is right overpowers his ability to do anything right, etc.
