Chapter 1:
The characters in the first chapter are Lila the eldest sister, Harry her brother, Bella and Camal the youngest sisters. Their mother is sick, and always in bed, and their father is an alcoholic fisher, he's always drunk. The youngest sisters go to school, but Harry and Lila don't go, because they can't afford the books and the uniform, other said the "school appliances", because their father sold their source of income, and it's their fishing boat and their cow.
So Harry works in fields, and he knew that the government is going to transform some of the fields into factories, so he wanted to work in them, but the story says somehow that Harry isn't an optimistic person.
Lisa, don't officially work, she just wake up early everyday to pray to god, with placing flowers on a specific rock, and to me she's in contrary with Harri, she's optimistic, and has faith that they could be better.
So here is the first chapter, it simply talks about the family and their condition..
Chapter 2:
So the 2nd chapter begins when Lila was buying home supplies at the market, and she met her friend Mina, to me she's in a higher economic class than Lila, because the book describes than she bought from the market supplies for her hair and doesn't bother the fact of "spending money", in contrary with Lila. They spent after shopping some time with each other in Mina's house. And throw their chatting we know that Biju who has his boat being built is a smuggler. And in meanwhile Harri and the two youngest sisters were chit-chatting about the rich people who were smugglers, and the fact that Harri is in great need of money and being rich, even if he turned out to be a smuggler.
After that, the author introduce us to the Dasilva's family, a rich family from Bombay, who come every now and then to the village to spend time near the sea, they actually bought a house, and they met Harri, and he gain a work from them and it's to do some chores. And also Lila was like a made for them, and the two were paid for their work. But at the end of the Dasilva's vacation, they charged the father of Harri ans Lila to guard their house while their absence, but this was not accomplished due to his negligent and drunken attitude of their father, and he was actually insulted by Mr.Dasilva. And that make Harri sad and unsatisfied, he talk walk with himself, when he met a men who was talking about the factories, and how big they were, but Harry was informed from that they won't let the youth of the Thul village work in it, because they were uneducated, and that discouraged Harry to work at the factories.
At the end of the chapter the author leaves us with a weird question, and its "why the family was sitting near the fire with a weird and gloomy look?"
