Using the legendary love story of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni and his Turkish slave-cum-lover Ayaz as the backdrop, Mahmud and Ayaz, set in contemporary Mumbai, tells the story of a young, casually radicalized Muslim man, Mahmud Fakhar, who has failed to qualify for the IAS?where he had hoped to make a lot of money, but also to weaken the system from within?and has barely managed a temporary teaching job in a second-rate college. At a loose end after his entire family dies in the 2015 Hajj stampede, he runs into a homeless Hindu lad, the illegitimate son of a tamasha dancer, hires him as his domestic servant, converts him to Islam, re-names him Ayaz, and begins an affair with him.