Rohinton Mistry's 1995 novel follows four characters — two tailors from an untouchable village, a student, and a widowed seamstress — whose lives converge in a Bombay apartment during the Emergency of 1975–77. It is a devastating portrait of what happens when a government suspends civil liberties and the poor bear the brunt.
The book is unflinching about caste, poverty, and political abuse, but it is also deeply humane and often funny. Mistry writes his characters with such warmth that their small victories feel enormous. If you are travelling through India, particularly Mumbai or rural Maharashtra, this novel will sharpen everything you see. One of the great Indian novels in English.