In 1939, the narrator’s great‑aunt Mayadebi left Calcutta with her husband (the “Shaheb”) and their son Tridib to stay in England. The narrator, who never spoke her name aloud, remembers her as a distant stranger. Tridib, now a lanky man with spectacles, habitually visits the narrator’s flat in Calcutta, arriving after a ritualistic dash to the lavatory because of “Tridib’s Gastric.” The grandmother, a stern schoolmistress, tolerates Tridib only as a rich relative and serves him a homemade omelette while warning the narrator not to waste time.

Tridib’s family background is fleshed out: his father is a foreign‑service diplomat; his elder brother Jatin‑kaku works for the UN; his younger brother Robi was sent to boarding school at twelve. Tridib spends most of his life in Ballygunge Place, pursuing a PhD in archaeology of the Sena dynasty, though his grandmother dismisses him as a loafer. He is a charismatic yet detached raconteur on Gole Park street‑corners, offering advice that swings between brilliant and mischievous. The narrator’s childhood memories include hearing Tridib’s stories of a 1939 trip to England, his false tale of staying with “Mrs Price” on Lymington Road, and the eventual revelation that the Price family were old friends of Tridib’s grandfather, a former Calcutta High Court judge.

As an adult, the narrator receives a research grant and travels to London. At the Royal Festival Hall he finally sees May, now an oboe player in an orchestra, recognizes her, and is invited to her flat. He learns that May lives alone, works for Amnesty and Oxfam, and that the flat contains a massive, forgotten table shipped from the Crystal Palace by the narrator’s grandfather in the 1890s. May shows him photographs of the old Calcutta family house, explains its origins, and tells him about the Price family’s wartime connections.

The narrator later reunites with his cousin‑friend Ila (the daughter of the UN diplomat Jatin‑kaku) and with Nick Price, Mrs Price’s son. In London they explore Brick Lane, visit the old Lymington Road house, and discover a cramped, decayed building where they imagine Tridib’s “Gastric” adventures. Ila tells the narrator about her own troubled school life, her encounter with a bully named Denise, and her eventual work with Save‑the‑Children. Nick, a charismatic but aimless youth, dreams of futures‑market riches and confides his disillusionment with his past jobs.

Meanwhile, the narrator’s grandmother, now bedridden, confronts the narrator about his relationship with Ila, labeling her a “whore” and accusing her of exploiting the family’s wealth. The narrator learns that his grandmother’s last letters were written the day before her death, blaming Ila for corruption and insisting that Ila’s “freedom” is merely escapism. The grandmother dies, and the narrator returns to Delhi for exams, only to be summoned back to Calcutta for her cremation, feeling alienated from his own family.

Throughout the chapter, the narrator weaves together memories of the Gole Park street‑corner debates, Tridib’s scholarly lectures on archaeology, the family’s wartime migrations, and the tangled emotional bonds between Ila, Nick, Robi, and himself, culminating in a night in the cellar of the Raibajar house where Ila and the narrator replay childhood games of “houses,” confront their mutual dependencies, and finally part as Ila departs for Stockwell, leaving the narrator to confront his own loneliness and the lingering ghost of his grandmother’s judgments.