In Charbagh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a short detour from the Grand Trunk Road that leads towards Afghanistan, stands a chinar tree in the garden of Khan Mohammad Usman Khan. Legend has it that it was planted by a saint known to the grandfather of Khan, who had told him that the family would prosper as long as the tree survived. The tree has stood for generations, a silent witness to the many stories of Charbagh.

In Charbagh, a village where modernity slowly creeps in, there are tales of unrequited love and family honour, of religious persecution, of patriarchy and the breaking of its shackles, and of what it means to belong to Charbagh.

Here, Fahad Khan falls in love with Saad Bibi, but it is a dangerous affair that threatens to uproot social norms. An imam competes with a more dogmatic proponent of Islam for devotees, while an English teacher is charged with the crime of blasphemy. Nazo learns that the progressive views of her family have their limits. A wheel-chair bound social worker stands up to a religious extremist.

Starting from the 1970s, when the furore of the Indus River was effectively seduced by a dam constructed near Charbagh, these stories chronicle a time and a place of belonging, of nostalgia and of relationship and friendships. The Whispering Chinar is an extraordinary debut.