A highly original, colourful comic first novel about how a penniless waiter from Mumbai becomes the biggest quiz-show winner in history. When eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammed Thomas scoops the jackpot on India's newly launched TV quiz show 'Who Will Win a Billion', rather than receiving a cheque for a billion rupees, he finds himself inside a prison cell. Because an orphaned boy cannot possibly know the smallest planet in the solar system, or the plays of Shakespeare. Unless he has cheated.

Just as crooked police officers are trying to extract a painful confession from Ram, a mysterious woman claiming to be his lawyer comes to his rescue. In order to prepare his defence she asks him to explain exactly how he came to answer each question correctly. To do this Ram must delve into his own eventful past, which includes being rescued from a dustbin at two days old, escaping a cruel gangster, working for a legendary Bollywood actress and a security-crazed Australian Colonel, and as an over-creative tour guide in Agra. As he recounts all of these experiences, it becomes clear that Ram is a true survivor, and all of the street wisdom he has acquired has provided him with the essential answers, not only to the quiz show, but to life itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat who has served in Turkey, the US, Ethiopia and the UK, where he lived in London for several years. He is presently posted in the Ministry for External Affairs in New Delhi as the Director in-charge of India's relations with Pakistan. 'Q and A' has sold in over twelve countries worldwide and is due to be made into a film.