The novel has two story lines, both disconnected to one another, though they are both set in Mumbai. One story is about Farhad Billimoria, a forty something Parsi psychotherapist who is divorced, has a Maruti 800 named Zelda, and is all set to fly off to San Francisco and settle down there. However fate throws the beautiful Zahra in his path and he ends up having a steamy affair with her. Zahra also is from San Francisco where she runs yoga classes. Another lady also comes into the picture, Hemlata, an English Professor who is the wife of philandering South Indian businessman Balu, and the fact that she and Farhad get on the wrong side to start with indicates that there is some heat which develops ultimately. Meanwhile we go through the Parsi, Irani stuff, a book event of Amitav Ghosh's 'River of Smoke', a Parsi event addressed by Modi and so on, covering a lot of ground in urban India.
In the other story a tribal boy Rabi is taking care of a senior brahmin Oriya couple, parents of his mentor Bhaban, a filmmaker, activist and aspiring politician. Rabi's people worship the sky or the clouds and believe that they are all made by the cloudmaker. However more serious issues are there such as companies out to loot the poor tribals by taking over their mountains and the ores that lie underneath them and this is where Bhaban comes in to help the poor voiceless tribals. In conversations with the old couple we understand how the caste system works and how the tribals and exploited and not even seen as equal people. In the end the lady Ooi dies while Eeja who was actually being taken care of survives. Bhaban wins the election.
Chandrahas is considered to be one of the bright young talents and you get why as you read the book. One reviewer compared his style to Wodehouse's. He has that easy flair which transforms even a mundane thing into something very interesting which means you will never get bored reading his books.
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