Poison Roots is the story of a young man, Kesavan, who is a college student, studying in pre-independent India. Critical of traditional religious practices, he scorns symbols of his high caste roots, especially the rather orthodox, autocratic attitude of his father. To overcome the shackles of his orthodox Brahmin background, he seeks intellectual interaction with erudite elders as well as a group of young Communists in his college. National award winning author Indira Parthasarathy has traced the journey of Kesavan, from being a disillusioned adolescent in a nascent nation, to one who accepts his destiny as a member of the educated upper caste. Etched with an idiom of everyday language along with shades of superior word-craft, this novel has a universal taste of the process of growing up.