Innocent and unremarkable, but for his near crippling obsession with sex and running, Bhola goes through life falling for the wrong people. At school, he lusts indiscriminately after his teachers â both male and female â and is equally attracted to eunuchs. While in college and far from home, he has a misguided affair with his landlady, followed by an ardent liaison with a vegetable vendor-cum-nurse and her husband. Then Bhola marries a woman with a voice of liquid gold, and becomes a father for the first time. Finally he believes he has come close to achieving balance and beauty in his chaotic life, until suddenly his past catches up with him and threatens to destroy his newly found happiness. Upamanyu Chatterjee's genius for black humour and the absurd has never been more compelling than in this unforgettable portrait of a lost life.