Purana Shehr is a small town with a celebrated madhouse, tea-house type Chhalawa Hotel and laid-back lifestyle. It is shaken out of its opiate mood when a termite epidemic almost brings life to standstill. The people of Topee Mohalla, a part of Purana Shehr, exhaust themselves in their efforts to end the termite onslaught. As the termites eat away maniacally at almost anything that they can, we come across Salar Jung who has arrived to stay with his daughter Bano Tamanna and son-in-law Mirzban Yunani.

Mushtri Khanam, Mirzban's sister, is a short, mischievous spinster who wears five-inch heels to her job at a bank to intimidate her colleagues. Qudratullah, the bank Manager, nurtures his unrequited love for Mushtri even at the termites eat way the bank's records and money. Chaos ensues in Purana Shehr where to destroy the termites people try methods both holy and unholy, and slowly realize the futility of their attempts.

MUSHARRAF FAROOQI was born in Hyderabad, Pakistan, worked as a journalist in Karachi, and started the literary magazine 'Cipher'. He moved to Toronto in 1994. He has translated into English the poetry of modern Urdu poet, Afzal Ahmed Syed, and is currently working on the English translation of the Urdu classic 'Dastan-e- Amir Hamza'. This is his first novel.