On a cool, dark night, under a canopy of stars, an Indian boy sits with his grandfather, bathed in the glow of a campfire. "Tell me the story again, Grandfather," says the boy. "Tell me who I am." As the grandfather tells the story of the boy's birth—how a fierce storm raged that night, how the boy was very weak and almost died—he ties another knot in his counting rope.

In this poignant story of love, hope, and courage, the counting rope is a metaphor for the passage of time, and for the boy's emerging confidence in facing his greatest challenge—his blindness.

From the dust jacket