Phoolsunghi

Dhelabai is the most popular tawaif in Muzaffarpur, and she has never let herself be owned. When she slights Babu Haliwant Sahay, a powerful zamindar from Chappra, he vows to build a cage that will hold her for good. He compares her to the phoolsunghi, the flower-pecker, a bird said to be impossible to keep captive because it drinks from one flower and moves on to the next. Even so, she ends up confined within the walls of the Red Mansion. Putting her past behind her, Dhelabai settles into a new life of comfort, luxury and respect. Then she hears the soulful singing of Mahendra Misir and falls in love. He feels just as deeply for her, but circumstances and their own choices keep forcing the two apart. Phoolsunghi is the first Bhojpuri novel ever translated into English. It carries readers into a vanished world of mujras and mehfils, court cases and counterfeit currency, all set beside the surging waters of the River Saryu.