Structura romanului este suficient de clară, cu puţină răbdare, iar enigma naratorului se rezolvă după ce acceptaţi că mintea nu vă joacă feste şi că la un moment dat povestitorul chiar este o pipă de opium (nu vă stric plăcerea lecturii prin această desconspirare, ba chiar vă scutesc de unele momente frustrante).
Sunt 4 părţi: "The Story of O" –cu naratorul Dom care ajunge la Bombay prin anii '70 şi devine dependent de opium, fiind un client fidel al "vizuinilor" de fumat unde îi întâlneşte pe Rashid, proprietarul unui asemenea stabiliment, şi pe Dimple, o frumoasă "hijra" (băiat vândut de o mamă săracă unui bordel unde a fost castrat pentru a avea un avantaj competitiv pe piaţa prostituţiei) care lucrează acolo part-time (îşi păstrează, desigur, şi locul la bordel). Intr-o societate puternic divizată social şi etnic, opiumul uneşte oameni dintre cei mai diferiţi.
La un moment dat, se schimbă naratorii din Dom la vechea pipă de opium (care foloseşte persoana întâi) şi care ne spune povestea lui Dimple care devine dependentă de droguri după ce un chinez, Mr. Lee, i le oferă pentru a-i diminua durerile.
Este o Indie căreia i se potriveşte imaginea lui Ghandi, unde hipioţii găsesc simplitatea, liniştea, naturaleţea pierdute în lumea vestică.
In partea a doua, construită într-un mod aşezat şi fără majore artificii temporale sau stilistice, "The Story of the Pipe" aflăm cum a ajuns Mr. Lee să-şi părăsească China natală pentru a se refugia în India şi a-i lăsa moştenire lui Dimple pipa faimoasă cu care să-şi câştige existenţa în "vizuina" lui Rashid.
In partea a treia, "The Intoxicated", lumea dependenţilor de opium începe să se prăbuşească, alături de întreaga Indie. Suntem deja în anii '90 când pe piaţă pătrunde heroina produsă chimic numită "garad" nemilos de accesibilă (inclusiv financiar) pentru mai multe categorii de indieni, iar Bombay-ul, acum numit Mumbai, este devastat de repetate acte de violenţă etnică care răspândesc o panică generală. Dom revine şi adoptă noua modă narcotică, iar înainte să părăsească Bombay-ul (din nou) o lasă pe Dimple la un fel de clinică de dezintoxicare.
In a patra parte, "Some Uses of Reincarnation", Dom revine în Bombay pentru a descoperi un oraş complet schimbat, polişat, sclipicios, dar la fel de corupt în esenţă, doar că de data aceasta cu ecstasy şi cocaină.
Romanul se încheie frumos, ciclic, rotund, atunci când Dom găseşte printre lucrurile lăsate de Dimple vechea pipă a lui Mr. Lee. Astfel se completează o lume închisă din care nimeni nu poate scăpa decât, poate, în amăgirile drogurilor.
"The sea was swollen with waves and rain. There were no birds in the sky, or there were fluorescent birds that piped harsh melodies, birds that revealed themselves to be kites, and moments later revealed themselves to be not fluorescent at all but transparent, and not kites but crows, transparent albino crows barking dissonance, not melody, and Dimple crouched under the terrible sky wheeling with luminous birds and asked me if I could see the lights of a ship where the horizon was. I followed where her finger pointed but saw nothing, because the sea was full of chop and rain. I don’t remember what I said in reply, or whether I replied at all, but just then I experienced a moment of clairsentience, a feeling of longing and anxiety, Dimple’s, and for a moment I saw what she saw, a lost junk with tattered sails that seemed to have travelled a great distance of time, from the past into the future, with too few stops for refuelling and repairs. And I knew that she wanted the ship to send a boat to collect her and take her away, take her somewhere calm and clean, where she could rest and repair her own wounds, and just then, just as I felt her sadness settle in my chest, she got up and went back to the taxi."
Pe această structură, devenită clară mai ales după ce termini cartea, Thayil îmbină ca într-o stare halucinogenă poveştile, sentimentele şi identităţile personajelor, amestecuri care se infiltrează natural într-o realitate suficient de ciudată şi haotică pentru a le estompa bizareriile fumului de opium.
"Dreams leak from head to head; they travel between those who face in the same direction, that is to say lovers, and those who share the bonds of intoxication and death. That’s why the old Chini’s head is in mine. I’m dreaming Dimple’s dream and I want to stop but I don’t know how. The beggar woman is dead and Dimple too is dead and I deserve to die for fucking the dead. He smelled the smoke from the burning warehouse as the sweat broke on his face and the room turned red. I deserve to be here in hell, he thought, as he reached down and squeezed his dick with his hand, squeezed as hard as he could, squeezed until he was shouting and he saw a vision of himself in the future, sitting in a room while the evening gathered, still dreaming her dream, except the dream was not of Mr Lee but of himself, years after Dimple’s death, when he was old and pious and waiting for her ghost, and he heard her future words, the lovely words with which she would greet him: dreams leak and the dead return, but only if you love us. Of the dozen words she would speak in the future, he’d be struck by the word love, because it had never before been uttered between them, not in all their time together. By then, Rashid would know the truth of the words, though he’d be glad to hear them from her; and by then he’d be grateful, bewildered but grateful that she’d come back to pay him this compliment."
Personajul care dă esenţă cărţii nu este naratorul Dom, ci Dimple, cea/cel care îşi adaptează masculinitatea sau feminitatea la propriile interese sau senzaţii (nu invers cum suntem cu toţii educaţi), nefiind niciodată cu adevărat nici una dintre cele două, pentru care drogul cuvintelor este mai puternic decât cel chimic, care devine un junkie al lecturilor (mai ales după ce învaţă engelza care îi dă o libertate literară mult mai mare), pentru care identitatea e ceva fluid, ceva aflat în continuă construcţie şi adaptare.
"I thought: For every happiness there is an equal and opposite unhappiness. Then I took a drag of charas and the room filled with light. Everything was transparent. The skin on my arms was as thin as paper. I looked into my flesh and saw the moving bones wrapped in pink translucent sheets; and all the while the rain fell in great washes against the roof, sheets of water that streamed from the windows and gathered in the corners of the room. We smoked that dirty hash, Bombay black charas with the colour and texture of goat shit, and we chased heroin on strips of foil. We spoke those words, the beautiful ones without meaning or consequence. We laughed for no reason and interrupted our laughter with silence. Pepsi spread a prayer mat and prayed and we waited in the room where the television flickered like firelight and the rain gurgled and crashed. We smoked. People came and went. We spoke the beautiful words and we called heroin by its joyful name. I didn’t sleep but I was full of dreams and when I made my way outside it was dawn. The rain had thinned. Everything was lit with meaning. Water lapped against the city’s ruined buildings, dirty water strewn with petals and garbage and smelling of attar. People waded on the street, soaked to the skin, their faces ecstatic in the charcoal light. I knew them as my brothers as I stood in the rain. I spread my pitiful, deluded arms wide. I wanted to hold the city, each woman and child and animal and man. I wanted to save them. And then I saw Dimple on the balcony reading a book, squinting as if her life depended on the words. When she saw me she stood up. There was a piece of sticking plaster on her chin and she said something I didn’t understand, or maybe I did understand but I don’t remember. I went to say goodbye and she whispered something in my ear, repeated what she’d said earlier or said something else, though I still didn’t understand until I saw the Air India carry case in her hands. She had packed her belongings and she’d been waiting for me on the balcony. It was still raining and below us the floodwater suddenly seemed very deep, though I knew it wasn’t. Dimple watched a puddle form on the balcony. She said, Take me with you. I’ll die if I stay here."
O predispoziţie la schimbare identitară pe care o are însuşi oraşul aflat în centrul cărţii, construit paradoxal pe o bază absurdă şi nedreaptă de inegalitate imuabilă, stabilită prin naştere.
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