An extraordinary tale about a very ordinary couple, Santu Babu, a junior clerk in excise department, and his wife, trying hard to maintain their identities as individual and social beings in the midst of economic hardships. The symbol of the shirt of a servant of the landlord that looms large is a poetic symbol, but it is also a cultural and political symbol, meant to express the dilemmas and fears of the protagonists. Written mainly in the first person narrative, the local flavour and wit and the intensely imaginative language make it a modern classic in Hindi literature.