Professor Hardyal, a highly imaginative and emotional person, is living a normal life in a state government college in North India till an apparently insignificant incident shatters his ethical edifice. During this critical phase of his life he lays bare the decaying fabric of his society, though in the process he also reveals the dark forces lurking in his own psyche. His vast knowledge, particularly of science, literature and history further aggravates his sense of hurt and crippledness. The book narrates the saga of a common man caught in the whirlwind of social and moral forces ready to crush him. His predicament no longer remains confined to the contemporary Indian scene; it assumes a universal dimension of the postmodern person. Haunted by his past memories and goaded by his wild desires, Hardyal still wades through his crippling circumstances to ensure his survival in the midst of these very forces.