This is a state of the nation novel or more accurately a state of Mumbai novel. Behind the tale of a struggle by a developer to acquire, for flashy redevelopment, the three towers of the lower-middle-class, crumbling Vishram Co-operative Housing Society, lies a colourful and ambitious novel about the changing standards and habits of the citizens of Mumbai, poisoned as much by the rocketing wealth all around, as by the foul air and excrement-laden byways. (Adiga mentions shit and its stench time and again.)
On the one side of the divide is a group of friends and neighbours who live in Tower A of the Society. The most respected of them is Masterji — Yogesh A. Murthy — a retired and recently widowed schoolmaster. But all the inhabitants of this tower are aware that in a crumbling world, Vishram is pucca. It stands for something — standards, decency, and old-fashioned rules. It is described on a plaque in hour of Pandit Jawaharhal Nehru as ‘Good Housing for Good Indians’.
As you read this you know very soon that these good but rather poor Indians are going to be unhinged by the pressures of the outside world, which is applied by the developer, Darmen Shah, who offers, with the help of his creature and enforcer, Shanmugham, unimaginable sums of money to all the inhabitants. He has in mind to build something like the extravagances of Shanghai. He proposes beige marble and all sorts of unheard of modern conveniences, like air-conditioning and reliable 24-hour water.
At first many of the residents of Tower A refuse to discuss selling. They love the place, they have a warm, if rather penumbral, social life; they like the antiquity of the Society (built in l950), the old trees, the dozy guards, the exploited cleaners and their outdoor parliament, where they practise a kind of arthritic democracy. All these characters are fully realised. But you soon see that the residents are mostly keen to take the developer’s money and of course you guess that Masterji is going to be the hold-out, the Last Man in Tower.
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