Nineteen-year-old Anjali Bose lives with her parents in the rural hinterland of Gauripur under the strict rule of Indian tradition. Her father is eager to marry her off to a suitable fiancé, even though her older sister's arranged marriage has resulted in a divorce and single parenthood.
Anjali chafes at these traditions, but finally agrees to meet one man who seems all spit and polish--until while on a drive in his "very nice car," he forces himself on her and Anjali becomes a girl on the run.
Decamping from home in the middle of the night, Anjali flees to the home of her former English teacher, Peter Champion'. The worldly Champion encourages her to move to Bangalore and take a job in a call center. Anjali--now "Angie"--experiences culture shock as striking as any travelogue's version of the same: Bangalore's dialects are many and foreign, its young women modern and free, and the crumbling ruin into which "Angie" moves holds tattered bits of the old "Raj."
Mukherjee goes Bollywood after Angie arrives in Bangalore (a series of improbable events catapults her from a new lover's arms to prison to an opulent home to a canoe trip back to her old school, all within eight months), and leaves quite a few loose ends–but she has captured the tension between old and new, traditional and postmodern, obligation to family and to self--that is India today. Two of the book's mantras are: "Nothing in the world is as it seems--it's all light and angles" and "We're all Photoshopped." Believe it, as you sign on for the ride.--Valerie Ryan