Dehradun City, Himalayas, India 1977: Two bright, complex, and beautiful U.S. female students accompany their Indian research professor to this city near the tense borders of China and Nepal. The girls question the holiness of the Bhagavad-Gita’s two polygamist avatars while watching the “holy-war” dance of the Mahabharata, its link to polygamy and local heroes (or villains?). The students fall in love with India and their friendly hosts but discover much more about their own cultures and themselves--while gathering intrusive data on women’s rights violation, low-caste discrimination, and animal cruelty—all sanctioned by  religion.



When the hosts discover the women’s secret love-life, they turn against them. The professor fails to avoid the aftermath. He tells the full story including what went between him and the women, and his wife, while trying to stay focused on the troubling research question: Are polygamists holy?

Anoop Chandola
Author of IN THE HIMALAYAN NIGHTS (Savant 2012)