Darshan – Amrit Chima
In 1911 rural India, Baba Singh Toor commits a shocking act of violence to avenge a crippling loss, setting a secret in motion that will haunt—and claim—the Toors for generations.
Hardened by a crime for which he was never caught, Baba’s past casts shadows over his sons, even as the era of British Colonial tyranny and oppression reaches its height. In the distant colony of 1940s Fiji, his son, Manmohan, a virtuoso of enterprise, bears the burden of his father’s sin, plagued by an all-consuming insecurity that suffocates his own children. And twenty-five years later in San Francisco, Darshan—inextricably linked to his grandfather, Baba Singh, by both birth and fate—finds himself dragged to the centre of conflict. Held accountable for the Toors’ dark history, he labours to honour his name—meaning one who is blessed with clarity of sight—attempting to keep the family from irreparably splintering apart.
When disgraced former inspector, Shan Tao Yun joins a group of reverent Tibetans returning a sacred artefact to its home, it seems he has at last found the peace he has struggled for since leaving prison. What starts as a spiritual pilgrimage, however, quickly turns into a desperate flight through the Tibetan wilderness as the outlawed monk who guides them is murdered and Sham discovers that the artefact has recently been stolen from the Chinese army.
Gabrilis Kaloyeros is a bee-keeper on the beautiful Greek island of Arcadia. The ruined Temple of Apollo has been in his care for decades, and he has worked to protect it. But when crooked developers take over the island and the value of the land soars, he is persuaded through unscrupulous means to sign away his interest. Hours later he meets a violent, lonely death.
Timely and lyrical, The Cry of the Dove is the story of one young woman and an evocative portrait of forbidden love and violated honour in a culture whose reverberations are felt profoundly in our world today. Salma has committed a crime punishable by death in her Bedouin tribe of Hima, Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. Despite the insult it would commit against her people, Salma has the child and suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor.