The book is set in the late 19th century against a backdrop of Indian Indenture, the shipment of workers from India to work on the sugar plantations and railways in Natal. Indenture was (to me) a dressed-up form of slavery (banned earlier in the century) and met a need by the white settlers for cheap labour. Indentured 'recruits' were invariably from poor backgrounds, with hunger from drought driving them to leave their homeland. Conditions on board the ships and on the plantations were terrible for all workers, with women treated particularly badly, given the assumption that they were less 'useful' for the work. Promises of land to those completing the 5 or 10 years indenture period were invariably reneged upon by the authorities, the landed migrants being viewed as an unwanted 'problem' once their contract had finished.

Usha suffers from the cultural stigma of her widowhood, a condition which prompts - in part - her escape, but to a situation that is no better. The sad thing is that parts of Indian society retain even today a deep seated suspicion of widows, as attested to by the 'widow city' of Vrindavan.

The book is cross cultural and examines themes of struggle, search for self, emancipation. I cannot say that I found answers to my concerns and mankind's treatment of the disadvantaged is a subject with which I continue to grapple.