"Vishnu, the ood-job man in a Bombay apartment block, lies dying on the staircase landing. Around him the lives of the apartment dwellers unfold: the warring housewives on the first floor,
lovesick teenages on the second, and the quietly grieving widoweron the top floor of the building. In a fevered state Vishnu looks back on his love affair with the seductive Padmini and wonders
if he might actually be the god Vishnu, guardian of the entire universe." --back cover.