'Absolutely top-tier Indian contemporary fiction. Empathetic, sharp, funny, authentic and complex. Loved it.' - Samit Basu

'Wickedly funny and whip-smart - the kind of book you'll breeze through with a grin on your face.' - Aditi Mittal

'A vibrant story of friendship, saturated with the exuberance of Mumbai.' - Mahesh Rao


Things are not going well for Mumbai flatmates Meera and Aalo. Forty-year-old journalist Meera is convinced she's confronting a mid-life crisis, even as she boards a train to Kandivali to hook up with an impossibly young colleague. Twenty-nine-year-old Aalo-professionally and emotionally adrift-ends up sliding into the DMs of a ravishing (and far-away) war photographer, after embarking upon a mission to date anyone who is not right of centre.

Alongside these fledgling infatuations, which seem determined not to remain casual, Meera and Aalo have to navigate the politics at work and manage parents who are as loving as they are xenophobic. If they are able to survive in this labyrinth, it's because they can lean on a chosen family of fiercely loyal girlfriends, and the city of Mumbai, which brings out selves they didn't know they possessed.

Original, electrifying and whip-smart, Lightning in a Shot Glass is an ode to romance, a tribute to the magic and mayhem that is Mumbai, and a love letter to all women.