In Sri Lankan myth, a person who dies may be reborn a "hungry ghost"--a ghost with a large stomach that can never be filled through its tiny mouth--if he has desired too much during his life. It is the duty of the living to free the dead who are doomed to this fate by transferring karma from their own good deeds. Shivan, a troubled young man of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese ancestry, is preparing to travel from Toronto, Canada, to the land of his childhood, Sri Lanka, to rescue his ailing grandmother and bring her back to die.