When Bernie sets off with his brother, Hatem, to say goodbye to their dying grandmother in the mountain town of Budaun, in Uttar Pradesh, he does not suspect that he will also have to bid farewell to the way of life he has always known. Upon his return to more populous regions, Bernie discovers that race riots have broken out between the Muslim and Hindu factions of India, and the long-lasting peace in the country has been shattered.

Bernie is just an agriculture student trying to get back to college, uninvolved in the seething tensions stirred up by the impending creation of Pakistan and...