In this sequel to Chowringhee, the third instalment in the life and tribulations of the naïve and innocent young Shanker, he is once again out of a job and without a roof on his head. After much difficulty he finds a job as a manager in a grand but crumbling building in the posh area of the city: Thackeray Mansion on Scudder Street. The narrator directs his keen eye and sympathetic ear to tell captivating stories of those who live in the homes within a home of Thackeray Mansion, and those who work in it. The mysterious disappearance of Philip sahib's wife, the hilarious monologues of the feisty Poppy Biswas and the grouchy Baradaprasanna, the seductive Sulekha Sen who morphs into the respectable Seema Chatterjee, and the love of Dorothy Watts for Rabindranath Tagore: stories nestle within stories and the result is an astonishing novel filled with joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, despair and hope.