Ten vignettes in New York City: a pickpocket meets his match; a young Hasidic woman, on the eve of her marriage, reveals herself to an Indian businessman; a writer tries a pick-up line; an artist seeks a model; a composer needs to read; two women connect; a man takes a child to Central Park; lovers meet; a couple takes a walk on their anniversary; a kid goes to the prom with a girl in a wheelchair; a retired singer contemplates suicide. There are eight million stories in the naked city: these have been ten of them.

After the passing of his Pondicherry-born mentor, Susanna, Mumbai-based Dr. Arun Kumar Singh narrates his story to his wife, Nalini. With photographs from an old album that he has never shared with anyone, he informs her as to how Susanna caught him stealing; got him to quit his job & enrolled in a Panchgani school, as well as arranged for further education in St. Petersburg. While Susanna herself searched for true love and her marriages with six deceased men - including the abusive Major Edwin Rodrigies; drug-addicted and womanizer guitarist-singer Jamshed Singh Rathore; impotent and abusive Mohammad Wasiullah Khan; bigamist/spy Nicolai Vronski; Inspector Keemat Lal; and Dr. Modhusodon Tarafdar - men who influenced her life, broke her heart - and met with sudden and mysterious deaths.

Based in Budbuda, Uttar Pradesh, Billu Vilas Pardesi barely makes a living as a barber. His wife, Bindiya, looks after the household, and his children, Gunja and Ronak, are on the verge of being expelled from Gyaan Bharti Vidyalay Higher Secondary School due to non-payment of fees. Then everything changes when Bollywood actor Sahir Khan makes an appearance to film a movie in the town. Rumors spread that Billu is Sahir's close friends, and he becomes a celebrity virtually overnight. His shop gets donations and clientèle, and the school decides to educate his children for free. The trouble begins when townsfolk want to meet with Sahir but Billu is unable to contact him.

After being apprehended, detained, humiliated, and denied legal counsel by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Omar Ehzaz, originally from Delhi's Lajpatnagar, relates to the investigator, Roshan, assigned to his case, how he arrived in New York during 1999; his friendship with Samir Shaikh and Student Counselor, Maya; the events of September 11, 2001; the subsequent paranoia, fear, racial profiling, generated and aggravated by the tyrannical right-winged regime of George W. Bush, and how he came to be in possession of several Ak47s and plastic explosives that were confiscated from his taxi-cab.

A year after the accidental death of their father, three drug-addicted brothers -- each suffering from depression - meet for a train trip across India. Francis, the eldest, has organized it. The brothers argue, sulk, resent each other, and fight. The youngest, Jack, estranged from his girlfriend, is attracted to one of the train's attendants. Peter has left his pregnant wife at home, and he buys a venomous snake. After a few days, Francis discloses their surprising and disconcerting destination. Amid foreign surroundings, can the brothers sort out their differences? A funeral, a meditation, a hilltop ritual, and the Bengal Lancer figure in the reconciliation.

The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But...