The book tells the story of a diverse nation in 9 chapters, highly recommendable for those who wish to explore the world under the reading lamp. Naipul speaks to various people across the country, understanding the views and opinions long after the battles were fought in order to be independent from British rule. He meets people who are optimistic, who live in fear of death, who enjoy power and for whom Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the man who freed them from the captives of untouchability, is a deity whom they worship.

As he continued his journey to other parts of India, he met Rajan, a displaced Brahmin in Calcutta; Kala, a Tamil woman who has thrown off the chains of tradition; Dipanjan, a science professor in West Bengal; Rashid, a Shia Muslim in Lucknow; and Gurtej Singh, a Sikh in Chandigarh and many more…

In the last chapter, The House on the lake: A Return to India, the author's following lines from the book summarises his experience during his visit to India: "Change is present everywhere, India was now a country of million mutinies. A million mutinies, supported by twenty kinds of group excess, sectarian excess, religious excess, regional excess: the beginnings of self-awareness, it would seem the beginnings of an intellectual life, already negated by old anarchy and disorder. But there was in India now what didn't exist 200 years before: a central will, a central intellect, a national idea. .... What the mutinies were also helping to define was the strength of the general intellectual life, and the wholeness and humanism of the values to which all Indians now felt that they could appeal. They were a part of the beginning of a new way for many millions, part of India's growth, part of its restoration."

The author of the book celebrates the vagaries of everyday life, how people continue to be victorious in spite of the chaos, untidiness and poverty. It is a travelogue analogy between the emancipation of millions and the Mutiny of 1857. The book is somewhat optimistic about the country and its people. The author leaves the reader with a hope in the concluding pages. It is a very optimistic book on India, an innovative way of telling India's story from the eyes of the Indians.

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