This triumphant novel about the razzle-dazzle Hindi film industry confirms Shashi Tharoor’s reputation as one of India’s most important voices and a writer of world stature. His hero — or antihero — is Ashok Banjara, one of Bollywood’s mega-movie stars, a man of great ambition and dubious morals. Even as his star rises, his life becomes a melodrama of its own, with love affairs, Parliamentary a...