When travel writer Christopher Stewart arrives at a lakeside resort in Kerala, India to meet Koman, uncle of Radha and a famous dancer, he enters a world of masks and repressed emotions. From their first meeting, both Radha and her uncle are drawn to the enigmatic young man with his cello and his incessant questions about the past. The triangle quickly excludes Shyam, Radha's husband, who can only watch helplessly as she embraces Chris with a passion that Shyam has never been able to draw from her.