Baba, the eldest, is a poet and critic. He whiles away his time in 'Literary discussion', but considers taking up a job to be below his dignity. He keeps on insisting that he is different from the others without ever proving it. He wants to write a novel that will surpass sartre (renowned novelist and thinker) but has not succeeded in doing so. He feel that his family members just do not have the capacity to recognize his talent and hence constantly looks down upon them. Yet he keeps on living a parasitical existence.

The second son, Mohan, is not so intelligent and has been an ignored child. He did get a job but has been made a scapegoat in some small scam.

He remains in the house, does not even attempt to get a job; he has lost all confidence. He does have one talent, cricket. May be in better circumstances and opportunities he would even have made it till Ranji, but today he is not even taken in the chawl-team as he cannot pay his contribution. His daily routine is to lie on the only cot in their house listening to any cricket commentary that is on.

Naru, the youngest, has devited from the socially approved track at an early age. Poverty, a bed-ridden father, no education, bleak chances of getting a job - he soon turns into small bhai. The under- world is the only sphere which is ready to open its doors for him. He is already involved in street-brawls and even in minor cases of Khandani (Money Destortion). He is a constant source of worry of his mother, but still it is he who brings some money in the house.

The daughter, Manju. is the youngest. She has had an affiar with the son of the local grocer and was forced to undergo an abortion. She was also married off to a widower, a mill-worker and a trade union activist, who is off work due to the strike and so she has had to come back to her maika. The strike will be crushed and the workers finished, but before that on her return Manju again finds herself getting involved with the groer's son-age and money are his plus points.

These are irresistible to Manju, who works in some suburban factory on a paltry salary and who cannot even spend a night with her husband.

The mother of these four children is still upright - age, circumstances, all factors are against her, but she refuses to succumb. She has a nostalgia for the past, she has seen days when the textile mills were prospering and its workers were at least assured of their daily bhakar. Her husband was mill worker of which is proud. She used to supply tiffins to about a dozen workers. Things have changed. Her husband is no more. Her sons themselves are struggling for survival and strikes are being crushed to make matters worse. Today she manages to supply only a couple of fifteens and has to take up perchutant tailoring jobs to make the two ends meet. But she does not face the present and refuse to bow down. Her soft corner is Naru, she is even ready to condone his faults - he is a headache and he is a solaace.

This play is about these people, this mileu, these times. It has a geography and it is not history!

Mills are being shut down one after another and the entire mill- worker culture is witnessing its own death. In such circumstances people are trying, struggling, fighting to live, to survive, to be. The future is dark. The ground below is being swept off. In a state of pendulum, people are trying to live. How?

The play is no answer to this question, it is this question....

The gap between levels of aspiration and performance keeps on widening, opportunities keep on shrinking, a one livelihood fetching profession meets its end, the easy money earnings spheres beckon the confused youth - the underworld thrives on such peoples of the lower-middle class.

But aspirations and hope do not die: Somebody wants to write, somebody wants to play, somebody wants to love, all want to live - and the mother wants to make other live. This mother is continuously being crushed and quietened - but at the end of the play we still find her standing up, without words, but with a question ......

Won't you at least care to listen to her?