The story of Jagseer Singh, with his piquant individual and social situation, is actually a story that is very personal in appeal but carries a distinct political message. Lonely, and at the end, left derelict, Jagseer's story is reflective of how social hierarchy, caste struggle and economic exploitation can break the soul of an individual and create chaos in social and personal relationship. The tragedy of Jagseer, enlivened all the more by his unrequited love for his friend Nikka's wife, Bhani, and alleviated by his addiction to opium, opens up the feudal environs of the Punjab villages before the reader a bit surreptitiously making the characters and the story grow upon them slowly but surely.