People accidentally - literally, accidentally - thrown together, for what could very well be the last hours of their lives, or of some of them anyway, sharing travails apart from scanty food and water, is generally a sure shot for an interesting film, and here the author does it for a book on a grander scale - the accident involved is nothing as small as a plane crash on an island or in middle of ocean, it is the San Francisco earthquake of recent years, with people trapped in the story in the Indian consulate, some working and others waiting for visa.
At that one may wonder if they would not be in so much trouble if the consulate were on ground floor, but then again, it could have been worse, it could have been a higher floor precariously balancing or toppling. When earth shakes under one's feet there really isn't much except luck and fate one way or another.
Here the surviving few take up an idea, of telling about one amazing thing of their lives, and that forms the branches and leaves of the tree, or the bouquet, with the earthquake and consequent danger binding it together. As the stories proceed one begins to gather there are other common threads, of human experience, in stories of such a diverse group. Love and marriage and concerns related is one, of course, and India another.
Some surprises make one realise how one might take seemingly ordinary people for granted, and all along they might have an amazing story, or just plain be amazing. And more.
