Minor Gods

The plot is set in a remote fictional village of Ramapuram in Andhra and it centres around three families ? of Krishnaiah, a poor farmer with a cultured son Pratap and a daughter, of Veera Bhadraiah, the powerful village head and landlord with a son of loose character Rajendra and daughter, and of Govindaiah, the village postmaster with a daughter. Veera Bhadraiah goes on expanding his empire on three fronts by annexing adjoining lands of poor farmers, by doing stealthy business by illegally transporting logs of red sanders and sandal wood from the nearby forest and by becoming politically strong as the village head or Sarpanch and later as an M.L.A. His son Rajendra takes to bad ways, seeks pleasure in liquor and sex causing much embarrassment, nuisance and insecurity to good- looking young girls of the working class.

Presentation of rural life in India has been ignored by almost all the contemporary Indian novelists in English. Most of the writers, with their urban background and with no knowledge of rural life, failed to portray the real rural picture. As such, I feel I am the proper person to make an honest presentation of rural life, because from my birth I live in the village itself. I was born in the village, I am brought up in the village and I continue to live in the village. Hence with first hand knowledge of village life, I feel I can do justice in presenting existing rural scenario with all its activities and limitations.