"Mumbai has emptied under the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation; gangs of marauding Hindu and Muslim thugs rove the desolate streets; yet Sarita can think of only one thing: buying the last pomegranate that remains in perhaps the entire city. She is convinced that the fruit holds the key to reuniting her with her physicist husband, Karun, who has been mysteriously missing for more than a fortnight."--Provided by publisher.

"At the opening of this novel, Vishnu, the resident odd-job man, lies dying on the staircase he inhabits, while his neighbors the Pathaks and the Asranis squabble over who will pay for an ambulance. As the action spirals up through the floors of their building, the dramas of the residents' lives unfold: Mr. Jalal's obsessive search for higher meaning; Vinod Taneja's longing for the wife he has lost; the comic elopement of Kavita Asrani, who fancies...