Gambhir's serious problems in life stem from his job in the Y Corporation. If other department heads aren't conspiring to have him transferred to the Tissues and Toothpicks Division, he's being set up using his own considerable lust as bait. At the epicentre of this world of corporate intrigue lies big-boss Prop (the Proprietor)-invisible, yet in complete control of the cloak-and-dagger workings of white-collar India. It's to please him and that capricious being called the company that the rest live, work and scheme against each other. Dumped with the Toothpicks Division, Gambhir plans his great coup, one that shall restore him into favour. The plan-making toothpicks attractive to children-brings in those other truly creative artists of our times: ad men, fashion designers and media fixers. To cut this tedious burlesque short, Gambhir, after much monumental brainwork, succeeds and Prop appoints him Deputy Managing Director. Only to be again ensnared by Kapila, a worker in the Bombay branch, and be ejected. (Never mind that rampant bed habits are almost by-products of this salubrious economy.)
Spoof in mind, corporate India's petty intrigues are compared to kingdoms and courts of yore. But with its pedestrian writing, the novel fails to grip, falling short of its professed pastiche. And much like Gambhir Kumar, it falls prey to its own banality.
