manil suris comic prose and imaginative language transport readers to the petty squabbles and unrelenting conflicts of modernday india at the center of the narrative is the character of vishnu an aging alcoholic houseboy on the precipice of death who lies penniless on the bottom step of a middleclass bombay apartment house while vishnu appears to face his impending death placidly and philosophically a maelstrom swirls around him the residents of the building include a reclusive widower mourning the untimely death of his young wife a moslem family coping with the daily prejudices of their hindu neighbors and two families who unhappily share a kitchen worlds collide when the moslem familys son elopes with the hindu familys daughter and mr jalal the moslem family patriarch apparently flips his wig recognizing vishnu not as their dying houseboy but as the deity whose name he bears with the power to save and when mr jalal is found sleeping on the stairs beside vishnu he becomes the scapegoat for the buildings many ills in its frenetic and hilarious conclusion the death of vishnu trumpets the arrival of an extremely gifted indian writer bringing to spectacular life the tempestuous chaos that is life in india today winter 2001 selection