A young disenfranchised writer is suffering as an especially poor person in the lowest caste of Trinidad. The narrator opens the story telling of how the young boy miraculously healed him. It's the 1940's, and young Ganesh, the mystic masseur, is alleged to be able to heal ailments and maladies through miraculous massages. The narrator depicts the young boy seemingly failing to do the miracle, but then when the narrator gets better, his mother praises the mystic for his miracle.
At first, the massages were a form of busking, more or less, something he would do to make a living in the streets. Without health care, many people need massages for relief. At a funeral of his aunt, "The Great Belcher," Ganesh meets and eventually marries marries the funeral man's daughter. Leela, his new young wife, is something of a severe, private person. Ganesh asks for more money in the dowry.
Ganesh meets Beharry and decides to become a writer. He buys books, but his wife worries he won't ever start writing anything of his own. After a few years of watching him read and read, but never write, she leaves him and returns to her father, Ramlogan. This catalyzes Ganesh to write a book, "100 Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion," which restores his honor somewhat, but the family is displeased that he dedicated the book to Beharry. The book flops.
Ganesh decides his call is to become a religious guru and mystic. He allegedly heals spiritual and physical ailments, and suddenly, he makes money from his book. Ramlogan embezzles from his earnings by arbitrarily raising Ganesh's taxi fare every day. Ganesh quits his threats by a threat of his own: to put Ramlogan out of business as a competitor. The father-in-law is genuinely scared by the threat, and he stops.
The lift off begins into stardom. Suddenly, Ganesh is a national celebrity, then a political commentator, until finally, the Trinidad Hindu Association are so pleased by his wisdom they elect him to replace Narayan as president of the religious denomination. He runs for office next, securing the seat as Legislative Council of Trinidad. Ganesh learns that politics binds one's ability to do good for others, and he publishes a memoir that makes him lots and lots of money. It is called The Years of Guilt.
