A playful, feminist, and utterly original epic about a family--especially its inimitable octogenarian matriarch--in northern India. An eighty-year-old woman, Ma, slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband. Despite her family's cajoling, she refuses to get up from bed. Her responsible eldest son, Bade, and dutiful, Reebok-sporting daughter-in-law, Bahu, flit around trying to attend to Ma's every need, while her favorite grandson, the cheerful and gregarious Sid, entertains her with his guitar. But it is only when Sid's younger brother--Serious Son, pathologically incapable of laughing--brings his grandmother a sparkling golden cane covered with butterflies that things begin to change. With a new lease on life thanks to the powers of the cane, Ma gets out of bed and embarks on a series of adventures that baffle even her unconventional feminist daughter, Beti. She ditches her cumbersome saris, develops a close friendship with a hijra, and finally sets off on a fateful journey that will turn the family's understanding of themselves upside down.