Paul Theroux: The Elephanta Suite

An American businessman in Mumbai attends a fancy banquet to raise money for abused women and picks up a local woman there, to complement the underage schoolgirls he's keeping on the side. Another American man makes an elaborate, prideful point of not taking advantage of his Indian masseuse, only to find that he's being taken advantage of on every side. A backpacker pays for her room in a Bangalore ashram by teaching call-center workers to sound like Westerners — only to find that she has turned shy and well-mannered Indians into grasping and much too intimate mock-Americans.

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