My Mother's Lover and Other Stories is a collection of fourteen stories about people who suffer from curious ailments: of a poet whose writing is seen to be an ailment by her family; an insomniac's experience with sleep therapy; a woman's obsession with getting rid of plastic; a woman in Darjeeling desperate for a drop of water; a student fixated on reading a love poem as the failed relationship of her parents; a young couple trapped in a student's hostel during the 1971 war; a Nepali student passionate about proving that Nepalis are not stupid; a mother who can no longer differentiate between her heart and her head; a young woman on the verge of suicide; a girl who's hidden her teeth in a palace garden; a girl who treats literature like astrology; a young lecturer who seeks fame but can't foresee how it'll destroy his life; a singer with a mad harmonium; and two old lovers who are on a secret holiday until one of them finds out.