This is Desai's second novel, and I didn't like it at all, in spite of the Man Booker Prize. It's grim, it's desolate, a gloomy mixture of violence, betrayal and loss. It concentrates on two characters: Biju, an illegal immigrant in the states and Sai, an orphaned girl who lives with her grand father, a retired judge, in mountainous Kalimpong, where the hooligans of the Gorkhaland mouvement terrorise the population. Biju is the son of the cook who works for the judge.
But it's not even a story, Desai jumps back and forth, provides us with morsels from this or that, hard to follow. I felt it's more of an accuse to the stupidness, brutality and backwardness of Indians, a collage of random losers' lives and events. There is no real ending and certainly no conclusion.
If you want to get a depression, read it.

took it to the meetup