A young man returns home to Delhi after several years abroad and resumes his place among the city?s cosmopolitan elite ? a world of fashion designers, media moguls and the idle rich. But everything around him has changed ? new roads, new restaurants, new money, new crime ? everything, that is, except for the people, who are the same, only maybe slightly worse.

Then he meets Aakash, a charismatic and unpredictable young man on the make, who introduces him to the squalid underside of this sprawling city. Together they get drunk and work out, visit temples and a prostitute, and our narrator finds himself disturbingly attracted to Aakash?s world. But when Aakash is arrested for murder, the two of them are suddenly swept up in a politically sensitive investigation that exposes the true corruption at the heart of this new and ruthless society.

In a voice that is both cruel and tender, The Temple-goers brings to life the dazzling story of a city quietly burning with rage.