A non-white family in a small town in South Africa in the 1950s is affected by that country's segregation laws when the area in which they have their home and their small business is declared `white.' The two daughters of the household, Meena and Yasmin, are at the same time treading hackneyed paths through the tangles of pubescence and adolescence respectively, while their parents--their father classified `Indian' and their mother `Coloured' under the complexities of Pretoria's system of racial classifications--attempt to cope with this disruption to their otherwise comfortable lives.