Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of animal abuse.

Told by an anonymous and omniscient third-person narrator, the novel opens from the point of view of Tara, the glamorous younger sister in the Das family. She has returned to the family home in Old Delhi from overseas, where she lives with her diplomat husband and children, to attend a family wedding. Living at the house is her seemingly eccentric older sister Bim, a self-described “spinster.” Bim cares for their younger brother Baba, who has an intellectual disability and spends his day playing old 78 records on the gramophone. Along for the visit is Bakul, Tara’s husband, who is annoyed that she has decided that they stay at her family home rather than in the city with his family. He is disagreeable and bossy, and Bim notices that her sister has changed and that the marriage between Tara and Bakul seems strained.

Bim has never married and spends her time teaching at the local girls’ college She is attentive to the needs of her animals (a dog and cat inherited from others) and her brother Baba.