Raju is a young boy growing up in Kerala, India, a place where legend and imagination are alive and breathing in the landscape. The perfect balance of his world is represented by his relationship with his two best friends, Akshi and Meena. How can he choose between Akshi, with her laughing, 'lotus- petal' eyes, and gentle Meena, whose eyes are always touched with sadness? For Raju, the balance they represent is more than that of friendship, it is his foundation, and perhaps holds the answers to the questions which are slowly building in his mind.Travelling between his parents' family estates for the summer holidays, moving finally to the heady maturity of the senior school, Raju's world is filled with the richness of Keralan heritage, the taste of cardamom, ginger and turmeric, and an increasingly impossible-to-ignore sense of mysterious female beauty. But he is always accompanied by the duality of Akshi and Meena. As he grows in maturity and experience, will their paired presence still remain to balance his life?