When Hanif Kureishi discovers an abandoned manuscript that recounts his father's childhood in Bombay as the world turns upside down and India splits in two among religious lines: thus a family that had lived in India for generations now had to accept a Pakistani identity. So begins a journey which takes Kureishi through his father's privileged childhood by the sea in Bombay, to his adult life hidden away in the suburbs of Bromley - his days spent as a minor functionary in the Pakistan embassy in London, his nights writing prose, hopeful of one day receiving literary recognition.