Includes a new foreword by Pankaj Mishra Bombay in the 1980s: Shyam Lal is a highly regarded voice teacher, trainedin the classical idiom but happily teaching more popular songs to well-to-dowomen, whose modern way of life he covets. Sixteen-year-old Nirmalya Senguptais the rebellious scion of an affluent family who wants only to studyIndian classical music. With a little push from her mother, Shyam agrees toaccept Nirmalya as his student, entering into a relationship that will have unexpectedand lasting consequences.

With quiet humor and unsentimental poignancy, The Immortals is a luminousportrait of the spiritual and emotional force of a revered Indian tradition, oftwo fundamentally different but intricately intertwined families, and of a societychoosing between the old and the new.