The Song of Distant Bulbuls

In the autumn of 1939, seventeen-year-old Sammi has been married for only

twenty-one days when her husband, Hari Singh, an officer in the British Indian

Army, is summoned to fight inWWII.The heartbroken couple bid each other

goodbye. Sammi awaits Hari Singh's return in her village, Aliwala, a syncretic

hamlet with Sufi bearings in the hinterland of Punjab. It is 1946 but there is

no word from Hari Singh. He has been gone for nearly seven years. Caught

between her two feuding brothers, Jasjit and Kirpal, the now twenty-threeyear-old Sammi clings to her husband's memory.

India is on the brink of gaining independence from the British. Jasjit worries

that independence will damage age-old communal bonds and separate him

from his closest friend, Zulfi Sheikh. Meanwhile Kirpal plans to solidify his

social standing by forcing Sammi to marry his boyhood friend, the influential

Bachan Singh.Will Sammi be forced into a second marriage or will she find

the courage to step out of the narrow alleys of Aliwala in search of a new life?

Inspired by true events, The Song of Distant Bulbuls is set in a singularly

turbulent time in world history.The novel poses epic questions: is happiness

an elusive goal? Is love the ultimate aim of human life or a means to something

else?What does it take to realize who one truly loves and how much?