A study of the 1920s, and a couple of decades later, in the history of India would reveal that these years were marked by a stunning changelessness in the lives of people. The social structure remained almost static. The man in the fields would be governed by much the same values and customs as the man in the fields of three or four decades of the past. The woman in the home was the replica of the woman in the home of the previous decades. In this state of sameness, the only excitement and change was provided by the British intruders. Apart from them there was some movement upwards or horizontally in Indian aristocratic homes.

The rest of India were like onlookers, who had very little to excite them in their own lives and very little to carve out anew in the face of the rigid fixedness of the caste system. The same kind of living, the same kind of subjugation, the same kind of exploitation marked the existence of the masses. In the frame of this stillness, is etched out the relative movement in the lives of the Ranbakshies in The Tailor’s Needle. The novel is to be read like an engraving in wood or stone. It reflects a different kind of light and must not be confused with a tale which is just another story.