This is a personal adventure to the land Hyland's ancestors knew, but also an evocation of modern life in southern India. His journey is - through today's enigmas and enchantments, strange meetings and conflicts - to the home of his cousin Joy, last of five generations of missionaries and traders to work beside the sacred rivers. For all its deftness and humour, Hyland's account allows the reader vivid glimpses of the dark underbelly of South Indian life and death. He evokes the minutiae and grandeur of the everyday and of holy days; he revels in the warmth and hospitality, admits perplexity and horror, and often trips over the line between sacred and profane.