suggested reading prior to traveling to india for the first time
		train to pakistan, fiction, by khushwant singh - benchmark indian literature; the first thing i read on this  list. the end still haunts me. culture shock! india , non-fiction - informative book, available in the travel section. mussouri and landour, non-fiction  by ruskin bond - about the villages in the north of india where raj spent his  school years as a boy. a fine balance fiction, by rohinton mistry - breathtaking story - don't hold it's "oprah's book club" status  against it. the god of small things, fiction (though considered semi-autobiographical) - mostly because arundhati roy is one o this world's coolest individuals - o  yeah, and b/c it won the booker prize in '97. shantaram, fiction (though considered semi-autobiographical) - written by sketchy quasi-con-artist/champion of india's poor australian expatriate  gregory david roberts, it is nevertheless an excellent look at bombay and the slums of bombay the last song of dusk, fiction - a sorta-magic realism tale by siddharth dhanvant shanghvi . the bloodstone papers, fiction - for a taste of the the anglo-indian perspective, by glen duncan...