What happens when one attempts to exchange the life one is given for something better? Can we transform the possibilities we are born into?--Set in contemporary India and moving between the reality of this world and the shadow of another, this novel of multiple narratives--formally daring, fierce, but full of pity--delivers a devastating and haunting exploration of the unquenchable human urge to strive for a different life.

What happens when one attempts to exchange the life one is given for something better? Five characters in very different circumstances-- from a domestic cook in Mumbai, to a vagrant and his dancing bear, to a girl who escapes terror in her home village for a new life in the city-- find out the meanings of dislocation and the desire for more.