Amitav ghosh's the hungry tide

Between the sea and the plains of Bengal lies an immense archipelago of islands. Here, for hundreds of years, only the truly dispossessed braved the man-eating tigers and the crocodiles that rule there, to eke out a precarious existence from the mud. The settlers of the Sundarbans believe that anyone without a pure heart who ventures into the watery labyrinth will never return. It is the arrival of Piya Roy, of Indian parentage but stubbornly American, and Kanai Dutt, a sophisticated Delhi businessman, that disturbs the delicate balance of settlement life. From this moment, the tide begins to turn.