The River Sutra is a collection of six stories that have one common idea, love. The story opens up with an unnamed man who has lost his wife. The man quits his job at the government office and becomes an inn manager as a way of escaping his reality. At his current job, he meets different people who share different stories of their lives with him.
The first story is titled, The Monk’s Story. This is a tale of a young man named Ashok. Born in a wealthy family, Ashok enjoys all the pleasures he can afford. On one occasion, he accompanies his father on one of his business trips.
Ashok visits one of their diamond mining sites and is shocked by how his father treats the miners. The miners are overworked and paid very little for their work. Most of them sleep hungry since they do not have enough to feed their families.
Ashok feels disgusted with his life and vows not to become like his father. He joins the Mahavira religion who practice extreme non-violent measures like walking slowly and dusting the path ahead, so they do not hurt any bugs they cannot see.
The Teacher’s Story. In this story, the inn manager is listening to an old Muslim mullah he has befriended. The mullah tells him of a music professor who had dreams of becoming a renowned musician. However, his plans were not realized so the professor finds a musically gifted orphan. The professor raises the child teaching him everything he knows. He pours out himself and his dreams into the child. The professor grows to love the child as his own, he has found a new purpose.
However, the child is gunned down in front of the teacher which drives in insane. A few days later, the professor is found dead in his home after committing suicide.
The Executive’s Story. This is the story of a rich tea estate manager called Nittin Bose. During one of his regular visits to his tea plantation, he meets a tribal peasant girl, Rima. Bose falls in love with the girl, but he knows his feelings are futile since marrying the girl would be considered immoral. Bose returns home but he cannot stop thinking about Rima. He spends most of his time thinking about her to the point of losing his mind. Bose decides to write about his dreams of being with Rima in a diary, this is the only way he could regain focus and sanity in his life.
The Courtesan’s story. This is the story of a courtesan woman who lost her daughter to a thug named Rahul Singh. The courtesan had spent most of her life searching for her daughter. Years after she located her daughter and Rahul. She realized that Rahul never meant to hurt the child, he was convinced that he and the girl had been married many times in previous lives.
The couple had learned to love each other and were living a happy life. Rahul had given up his criminal lifestyle just to please his wife. However, the police found him and killed him. The courtesan’s daughter killed herself shortly after her husband’s death.
The Musician’s story. This is the story of the daughter of a famous raga musician. Her father was the best raga musician in their province. One day a young man came and asked her father to teach him everything he knew about raga and in return he would marry his daughter. The raga master taught his new apprentice everything he knows. After learning all the skills, the young apprentice broke his promise to her father and went on to marry another girl.
The Minstrel’s Story. This is the story of the young religious professor, V.V. Shankar, who dedicated his life and career to dispelling dangerous religious superstitions and traditions. On this occasion, he disguised himself as a Naga Baba (a group of ascetics who worshiped Lord Shiva).
During his time with the Naga Baba group, he managed to save a few girls who had been sold to prostitution by their families as a form of worship to their god, Lord Shiva.
