num_pages: 318
description: A poignant bitingly funny Indian satire and love story set in a scientific institute and in Mumbais humid tenements. Ayyan Mani one of the thousands of dalit (untouchable caste) men trapped in Mumbais slums works in the Institute of Theory and Research as the lowly assistant to the director a brilliant self-assured astronomer. Ever wily and ambitious Ayyan weaves two plots one involving his knowledge of an illicit romance between his married boss and the institutes first female researcher and another concerning his young son and his soap-opera-addicted wife. Ayyan quickly finds his deceptions growing intertwined even as the Brahmin scientists wage war over the question of aliens in outer space. In his debut novel Manu Joseph expertly picks apart the dynamics of this complex world offering humorous takes on proselytizing nuns and chronicling the vanquished director serving as guru to his former colleagues. This is at once a moving portrait of love and its strange workings and a hilarious portrayal of mens runaway egos and ambitions. .
language: English
title: Serious Men
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company