Shala

Dombivali, Maharashtra. Mukund Joshi is fourteen, has just been promoted to class nine and whats more-he is newly in love with classmate Shirodkar. He attends the same private tuition's as her just to get a glimpse of her beautiful face and follows her back to her house every day. Of course, she has no clue that someones pining away to death for her, because Mukund lives in a time where society discourages social interaction between boys and girls, he is forced to keep his pursuit a secret. When hes not negotiating the tricky alleys of love, he sits out in the school field or loafs about town with close friends, Surya, Chitrya and Favdya, railing against the education system and debating ideas such as discipline and Bohemianism. Set in small-town India in the 1970s during the emergency, Shala is a delicately nuanced novel that tells the story of adolescent struggles, which are as tortuous in real time as they are amusing in retrospect.