Zairos is a dissolute young landowner's son living in the town of Dahanu, just outside Bombay, when hislife of careless luxury is brought up short by a mysterious death: the sudden suicide of Ganpat, a tribalworker on his family's estate. Soon he has fallen in love with Ganpat's daughter, Kusum, and finds himselfdefying taboos with their relationship. At the same time, his grandfather, Shapur, reveals to him the storyof their family and of the land that Zairos stands to inherit. Dahanu Road brilliantly reveals the history of the relationship between the landowning Irani clan and theWarlis, local tribal people like Ganpat and Kusum who work the land for the Iranis. As Zairos' connectionwith Kusum deepens, he is drawn further into the mystery of Shapur's relationship with Ganpat and the other Warlis. Violence and hatred echo through history, and Zairos learns the terrible truth his grandfather has spent a lifetime hiding. With its inimitable mix of earthy humour and searing tragedy, this is undoubtedly Anosh Irani's most ambitious novel. Shapur built the family empire from a desperate start as an orphaned refugee, and any act that might threaten the delicate legacy spawned by his sacrifices would only provoke rage in the old man, who increasingly dwells in memories. So Zairos whiles away his time at Anna’s, the local haunt for the male leisure class, dreaming of a future with Kusum. There, with the support of some equally underemployed sidekicks, Zairos hatches a scheme to scare Kusum’s husband into releasing her, while keeping his own moral integrity intact. But alas, Zairos’s scheme will not unfold as planned, and along the way he will unwittingly expose family secrets that may well be better left buried… With brilliant gusto, Irani has built his Dahanu Road upon the pathways forged by authors of tragicomic romance spanning centuries and continents, from the Persian classic Layla and Majnun, to Romeo and Juliet or Wuthering Heights. Dahanu Road is a suspense-filled family saga, a sprawling romantic epic in which the delineations between the oppressor and the oppressed, or between love and hate, are demonstrated to be maddeningly deceptive.