"Kalyani dances like light on a river. She comes from a line of famous devadasis, though there is no place for her talent in the Madras of newly independent India. The devadasis, once celebrated as artists, are shunned as prostitutes in a modern nation. In exchange for a comfortable life as the wife of a wealthy arts promoter, Kalyani has to keep her origins hidden and abandon her mother, Rajayi to eke out a living in a decaying old princedom. Kalyani struggles to hold her life together in the absence of her art and her husband's attention. When a Bharatanatyam dancer from the city sets out to record Rajayi s dance repertoire on film, the carefully wrapped-up past threatens to unravel and shatter the fragile peace of the mother and daughter."--Jacket.