It was a book that had been lying there for a few days now. I had flipped through its first few pages and then kept it aside. "Hmmm....Paul Theroux" I thought, ''then why isn't he exciting me?" Why are the first few pages of his book The Elephanta Suite reminding me of the eponymous story from The Interpreter of Maladies? So it just lay there. Meanwhile, it was time for us to move house. Anticipating the confusion that lay ahead I grabbed the book and  realised that the due date for the book was nearing. With two days left for returning the book I flipped through it again, wondering why Paul Theroux couldn't make way into my heart. Was it me or was it him? I flipped through the pages again looking for an answer and I found it-The Gateway of India the second of the third novellas this book comprised.
Dwight Huntsinger(pronounced "Hund" by his Indian business partners), 40, American,divorced is visiting India on a business trip. During the past two trips he has kept himself away from the dirt,bacteria and germs that are part of India. He's been limited to his suite-The Elephanta Suite of the Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai eating tinned tuna. But on this particular visit he ventures to The Gateway of India. He is approached by a woman in a shawl. No, she is not a beggar. After sharing a few pleasantries with her he sees that an old man is driving away some street children- two little boys and an adolescent girl with a stick. This hurts the sentimal American in Huntsinger. He intervenes and the old man goes away. The woman in the shawl thanks Huntsinger for saving 'her children' and they all go to a nearby tea shop and soon Huntsinger realises that the woman is a pimp trying to make some money, using the the young girl. Before he knows it Huntsinger it being led through a stinky stairway into a room by the young girl under the promise of an enthralling dance performance. 
That night in his room Dwight is sleepless.The submissive, relenting young girl with a mask of make-up who enthralled him with his dance and with whom he ended up having sex with doesn't leave his mind. The next day he ventures towards The Gateway of India again. The woman in a shawl and 'her children' approach him. He indicates that he wants Sumitra, the young girl. Once alone in his company, her worn out face plastered with make-up, acting coy, the girl rebuffs his advances and that's the end of the Huntsinger's relationship with Sumitra.
However, Dwight is smitten, not by the beauty or the sex that he had with the young girl, but her submissiveness and her readiness. He haunts the Gateway of India again, looking for her. From the shadows one evening, emerges Indru. "I am hungry," she says. Deciding not to fall for her Huntsinger walks away, but she follows him. Soon in a narrow lane they stop. Indru is hungry and she can do anything now. Huntsinger has her and then slips the diamond, engagement ring that his wife returned to him after the divorce. 
Now it is Indru who dominates his thoughts-her submissiveness, her readiness.
His personal and professional experiences he realises that why most Americans believe that you can do anything in India. He realises that Indians help others because they help themselves in the process. They feed others to satiate their own hunger.

After returning to Boston, Huntsinger craves to get back to India. He manages to do so after three months or so. And in the following months he opens himself to various experiences in India. Experiences he believes are life altering. He is discovering a different side to himself. There is Winky, a rich divorcee, who befriends him only for a pair of expensive earrings. He traces Indru and becomes her benefactor, which makes him feel powerful. He feels like a king. He is amazed what a few dollars can do to an Indian's life. 
and there is Shah, his Jain counterpart in India. Huntsinger understands the Jain philosophy of not killing any of the living creature. 
Huntsinger soon starts living a double-life. A corporate man by day and Indru's benefactor by night. He gets to being treated like a lord by Indru who serves him all ways an Indian woman is supposed to in her 'apartment smelling of boiled vegetables,' with a charpoy. 
As time goes by things take a turn and Huntsinger soon understands how greedy Indians can be. He is tired of the way Indru repeats her stories of child sexual abuse and rape in broken English to evoke Huntsinger's sympathy... 

Of course, by now you must have guessed that I had developed the 'unputdownable' link with Theroux. What impressed me the most is the Theroux, despite being a foreigner managed to get into the skin of the Indian. He is smitten, seduced, in love and loath the same time. He stuck and liberated at the same time. He is like an outsider in the country who has touched our greatest truths-That at the end of the day Indians hate each other and that there is no value for human life in India. Apart from that he has also understood the foreigners come to India with the attitude Anything is possible in India.

His second novella-The Elephant God, is about Alice, a young American tourist who is on her way to bangalore to have a darshan of Sai Baba. Her travel companion leaves him for a new love interest in Mumbai and Alice makes the journey to Bangalore all alone. On the train she meets Amitabh, a young man who works in a call centre. 
Soon she reaches Bangalore and takes residence in the ashram. Her room mates are two Indian women Prithi and Priyanka, who apart from having been runaway from their particular situations in life have never stepped out of the Ashram to find their own meaning in life(Another reflection on the hypocritical attitude of Indians). They would rather just listen to Swamiji and continue to live like Swami's slave wives than find their own truth. 
Anyway, Alice begins to work in Amitabh's call centre as an American voice and accent trainer, much to the disapproval of her room mates. Somewhere between the electronic city and the ashram, in a tiny lane, she befriends an elephant and its mahout. One day Alice decides to take a week off as she wants to go to Mahabaleshwram Tamil Nadu. Mrs Ghosh, her superior declines to give her leave and demands to know whom she is going with(reflects the bad labour practices and intrusive nature of Indian bosses, especially women bosses). Alice, anyway, is a tourist and decides to just go. She thinks she has enough or a month or so. (She is happy that Rs 20, a few american cents can buy her a full meal in an Indian railway station). She starts her journey to Mahabaleshwaram and soon realises that she is being followed by lecherous Amitabh. All her attempts to lose him fail and Amitabh follows her relentlessly. Soon, somewhere between Mahabaleshwaram and Chennai, it happens. 

Alice is shattered. She is further tortured by an intrusive press, an inefficient judicial system. However, she decides to stay on and fight her case. She asked to leave the ashram as all the controversy is destroying the peace of the ashram. People from all walks of life approach her to withdraw the case-which she doesn't. She moves to out of the Ashram and starts living with the mahout, the elephant's presence reassuring her everyday. 
One day, days after the hearing of the case got postponed, Alice decides to serve her own brand of justice to Amitabh.

Once again, Theroux manages to get into the skin of India. The call centres full of Indians  training and studying to do a job that was once done as part-time by Americans.The false American accents, the passiveness of Indian women and their favouritism for males. It's amazing how Theroux higlights that when Amitabh tells Alice - "My mother calls me Bapu-that means Dad!" 
Theroux manages to get out of the tourist mode, that exalts India for its 'culture and beauty' and gets to its very gut wrenching reality. And India is not the only place, under whose skin Theorux has gone under, Theroux is the author of similar tales from all over the world.