This triumphant novel about the razzle-dazzle Hindi film industry confirms Shashi Tharoor’s reputation as one of India’s most important voices and a writer of world stature. His hero—or antihero—is Ashok Banjara, one of Bollywood’s mega-movie stars, a man of great ambition and dubious morals. Even as his star rises, his life becomes a melodrama of its own, with love affairs, Parliamentary appointments, framings, disgrace, and, in the end, sustaining a life-threatening injury on the set of a low-budget film. With irrepressible charm and a genius for satire, Tharoor positions the film world, with all its Hollywood glitz and glamour, egos, and double standards, as a metaphor for modern society.
