The book is a biography of the noted Indian filmaker V.Shantaram. A consummate actor, an innovative editor, an insightful director and a producer dedicated to the milieu in which he was born, he was a filmmaker of many talents. Born at the turn of the century, five years after the new medium of moving pictures had made its debut, he went on to become one of its many legends. Having devoted 79 years of his 89 years to the entertainment industry in India, V.Shantaram went on to become a father figure for the entire Indian film industry. An institution in his own right -- an institution much larger than the institutions he built and nurtured in a lifetime which spanned the century of cinema.