All Mrinalini Singh wants, she has. A loving husband, a competent cook, the vague hope of a book deal one day. But when her old roommate Jahanara accuses her of being selfish, Mrinalini is forced to practice altruism on the nearest available target-her maids toddler. All this caring doesnt come easy, though and it hardly helps that her husband Siddhartha has quit his lucrative job and acquired parental ambitions. Or that Brajeshwar Jha, her upstairs tenant and literary rival, has not only published his book before Mrinalini, but also lampooned her and Siddhartha in it.

Close to Home is a wry look at the small compromises, manipulations and sustained self-delusion of young men and women possessed of good fortune and only looking for good lives.