his is the story of the first 40 years of Ilyas Aasfi’s life. Ilyas is the son of an affluent Muslim civil servant Ali Ahmed and his homemaker wife Hajra who live in Alipur town / village of Gurdaspur in pre-partition United India. He has an elder sister Farhat. Ali Ahmed is a philanderer / polygamist and Hajra is the long-suffering first wife / servant / enabler. The train of women that Ali Ahmed scorches through in the first quarter of the book is.......