Kathmandu, Nov. 30 -- When news of his only child's death in faraway America reaches him in India, acclaimed writer Vishwanath starts coping with this tragedy the only way he knows: through words. His grief is channelled in a story that begins in the early twentieth century in rural India.

In this fiction that is soon established as personal history, Mange Ram, the son of a tenant farmer, achieves celebrity status after he is mentored as a wrestler by a neighbour. Soon, this talented sportsman is spirited away to Delhi to work as a domestic helper. This sets into motion a chain of events and a succession of heirs that will eventually tangle with Vishwanath and his present-day life.

Interspersed among this engrossing harkening to the pas...