In this unflinchingly candid memoir, Zareer Masani draws on the letters and diaries of his parents, charismatic politician Minoo Masani and his gifted wife Shakuntala, to paint an intimate portrait of two remarkable individuals and two families the Masanis, Bombay Parsis, and the Srivastava's, U.P. Kayasthsya united by marriage but divided by temperament, lifestyle and political affiliation. Minoo's father, Sir Rustom Masani, was an ascetic scholar who scorned wealth and all the comforts it could buy. Shakuntala's father, Sir J.P. Srivastava, arch-loyalist of the British Raj, made a fortune as a textile mill owner and brought up his daughter in the lap of hedonistic luxury. When the two fell in love and eloped, Minoo Masani was the twice-divorced leader of the left-wing Congress Socialist party. Later, he became a founder-member of the pro-free market Swatantra party, a man whom Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as his main ideological inspiration.

The author writes of his upbringing in these two milieus, torn between the rival influences and attractions of his Parsi and Hindu grandparents; of the anguish and isolation of coming to terms with his homosexuality in 60s India; and of the breakdown of his parents marriage, which was closely interwoven with the political drama of Indira Gandhi's rise to power and her imposition of the Emergency.