'It wasn't a dream. The water was still there - the biggest flood he had seen in his life. The Indus River had become a sea. It fills Jehan with despair. where is he? Where is Amir, his younger brother whom he was holding onto when he was engulfed by the flood? where are is parents, last seen trying to stop the mud walls of their house collapsing? When he becomes fully conscious , he discovers he is wedged in a tree along with the string bed he had clung to as he was swept down the river.' (Introduction)