Life is unpredictable enough for Gopi, with a maverick poet-grandfather and an elusive artist-father. Add to this pesky siblings, feckless film folk, eccentric friends, an incontinent dog, a neighbour who has his privates shaved in public, and all of it in a brand-new city, Madras, and you have Ice Boys in Bell-bottoms. Bent on making his mother's dire predictions come true, Gopi becomes a Hollywood-obsessed, pulp-fiction-reading know-all, willing to twist the truth for a movie ticket, and gamble it all away for a good time. While the country experiences the Emergency, Gopi has a series of his first love, first hangover, and extra cloth for bell-bottoms. Everything comes to a head on the day of the big party, when his life changes forever. Gloriously funny and surprisingly poignant, this coming-of-age novel, the first of a trilogy, is India's answer to The 400 Blows and Cinema Paradiso. A book for anyone who's ever been a boy - or loved one.