"In March Saturn is coming into the House of the Sun. Saturn is strong and will bring trouble. [...] Wear a sapphire, then nothing can harm you," Bhai Sahib, the priest, warns Mrs Hathiramani, reading her horoscope in his temple. Forty years before, at the time of Partition, the residents of Sadhbela were Hindu refugees from Sind. Now, in Bombay, these Sindhi exiles live as one family, fortunes drastically altered. With the priest's announcement, their lives will be irreversibly swept along by planetary influence. Sham Pumnani, the embezzler, finds a new, unexpected future. His sister, Lakshmi, experiences the worst cruelties of womanhood in a traditional society. Rani Murjani learns to stand up for herself and reach out to a new age. Through it all Mr Hathiramani writes furiously against time, to complete a translation of Shah Abdul Latif, immortal poet of medieval Sind, so that in Sadhbela a proud heritage will not be lost forever.