Young women daydreamed as they lay on the grass in the picturesque university town and looked up at the clouds. Young males strolled through Alfred Park in the morning. The evenings were for poetry reading, while the hot summer afternoons were for eating watermelons and drinking sherbet. Love was an unreachable ideal that was only sometimes attained during this period of constraining societal mores. The tranquil setting of 1940s Allahabad serves as the perfect foil for Chander's passionate love for Sudha, the daughter of his professor. Chander convinces Sudha to wed another man due to his intense belief in the transcendent purity of their love, which has disastrous results. His separation from Sudha left him deranged, and he became obsessed with the question, "Is love really about sex?" Is the purity of love a lie?-Chander spirals into a destructive affair with the seductive Pammi. Immensely popular since its publication more half a century ago, Chander & Sudha continues to seduce readers with its potent mix of tender passion and heartbreaking tragedy.