Hardy's tale of fame and fortune in India's Bollywood sheds light on the subcontinent's obsessive adulation of its own tinsel town. Each year India makes twice the number of pictures produced in Hollywood to feed a billion-strong domestic audience united in their hunger for "maximum escapism and minimum reality." The fantastic productions follow a rigid, strictly censored story line that substitutes Hollywood-style sex and violence with elaborate song and dance numbers. Using the "newest, biggest and brightest star in the Bollywood firmament," Hrithik Roshan, as a model, Hardy gives the reader a personal, discursive tour of this over-the-top world of Indian film culture, from the swanky Bombay club scene to the street side chai-stalls.