On the Merry-Go-Round

Summary

About the Book

What if mankind adopts a new way of telling the time? What if yesterday does not pass away to make way for today while tomorrow peeps from behind the wings? What if the Gregorian calendar appears to be unimaginative and unconvincing and has no appeal for minds which are not unidimensional and straightened? What if the land of memory which we all have is not a destination but a journey which must necessarily be made by flitting through time zones as diverse as those of the earth itself, in to and fro steps, in up and down circles?

In this philosophical story set in seaside Daman, a small old multicultural town two hours’ drive away from Bombay (in India), twenty year old Shyam, suddenly orphaned and recuperating at a family friend’s place, is bright and intelligent, jovial and mischievous, and all is seemingly perfect about him except for the fact that he refuses to accept the linearity of time. Dr Shane Webster, friendly but frustrated, has been ‘treating’ him for the last three months and has failed to make Shyam accept that the past has been left behind whereas the future is awaited. Unable to make a breakthrough he grudgingly hands over the case to his junior colleague Dr Zoya.

The brilliant and troubled Dr Zoya, once a patient herself, penetrates Shyam’s mind and tries to take control over it to ‘steer’ it the right way. Will she succeed in getting him to experience time the way we know it or will she succumb to the serpentine alleys hidden deep inside her own mind?