Namita Devidayal was born in 1968 and graduated from Princeton University. The Music Room, her first book, was a winner of the 2008 Vodafone Crossword Popular Book Award and was named an Outlook book of 2007. A journalist with The Times of India, Namita lives in Mumbai.Diwali, 1984. Mummyji, the matriarch of a mithai business family, lies comatose in a hospital in Bombay. Surrounding her are her four children: the weak, ineffectual Rajan Papa who is desperately in need of cash; Samir, the dynamic head of the business with an ugly marriage and a demanding mistress; Suman, the spoilt beauty of the family who is determined to get her hands on her mother's best jewels; and Saroj, the unlucky sister, who has always lived in her shadow. Each of them wants Mummyji to die . . .
