Rehtaf - Father of the Fatherless

Book excerpt: It is the 1970s when fourteen-year-old Leela leaves everything behind in her rural town and boards the Malabar train for Adakam in Kasaragod, India. She mistakenly believes she is heading to attend a church feast, but when she arrives, she is horrified to learn that she is about to become the wife of Yacob, a young man who had visited her house a year earlier with his overbearing mother. Naturally devastated, Leela reluctantly prepares for the ceremony. Ordered to give up her education and the remainder of her childhood, Leela is now a wingless butterfly unable to chase her dreams. After she and Yacob marry, Leela attempts to settle into her new life as a housemaid without consummating her marriage. But one night after someone sneaks into her room, disguising as Yacob, to share her bed, Leela soon realises she is pregnant. But who is the father? As she faces many challenges that ultimately will lead to tragedy, Leela has no idea that years later, her son will endure unthinkable abuse as he struggles to find his own destiny and the true identity of his father. In this poignant story, a chain of events unfolds that leads a mother and her son on unexpected journeys during different timeframes where fate determines the outcome.