Two brothers come to school and do nothing but tell stories. A retired man in India tries to collect his pension. A woman tells the story of her husbands death in partition India. Some of the stories are set in India, some in America. Some stories are fable-like, others more realistic. Some deal with sex, some are intellectual stories. But all stories deal, in one way or another, with small, mediocre people, people trying to fit into a world of bigness, applause, success.