pure Jeffrey Archer with a dollop of desi ghee' – Business Standard Best friends Azim Khan and Karan Nehru never considered politics a career choice, but then fate decreed otherwise. Forced by circumstances to rethink their professions, the two friends find themselves willy-nilly contesting elections.

Slowly but surely, Azim makes western Uttar Pradesh his electoral fiefdom and begins his journey to becoming the leader of Muslim India; Karan establishes himself as the overlord of eastern Uttar Pradesh and the adjoining states.

Together they make their way to the top, never compromising their friendship, until, finally, as cabinet ministers in a shaky coalition government under the prime minister ship of the wily former-Congressman Y.K. Naidu, their widely differing ideologies and temperaments, abetted by the malevolence of their colleagues, and the sheer scale of unfolding events, all combine to uphold the conventional wisdom that there are no friends in politics.