Palli Samaj by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee [Paperback]

The story is set in a village in the district of Hooghly in West Bengal, near the author's birthplace, Devanandapur, in the early twentieth century, when rural life was dominated by social conventions and caste prejudices. It deals with the efforts of Ramesh, a young Roorkee trained engineer, to bring change in the caste ridden village and to elevate the villagers to a better level of existence. It is also the story of two childhood friends whose relationship is doomed as social convention decrees that they must not come close to each other.