River of Fire: a novel

It was the season of beerbahutis and rainclouds, sometime in the 4th century BC. In a cool grotto Gautam Nilambar, a final year student at the Forest University of Shravasti, chances upon Hari Shankar, a princeling yearning to be a Buddhist monk. He falls in love with the beautiful, sharp-witted Champak. And thus begins a magnificent tale that flows through Time, through Maghadhan Pataliputra, the Kingdom of Oudh, the British Raj and into a Time of Independence. The story comes full circle in post-Partition India when Hari Shankar and his friend Gautam Nilambar Dutt meet in a grotto in the forest of Shravasti, and mourn the passing of their lives into meaninglessness, their friends who have left for Pakistan, and what remains of their country of which they were once so passionately proud. This great novel, originally published in Urdu in 1959, is easily one of the most discussed in contemporary India, widely acclaimed as a literary landmark.