The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories Book

I almost didn't finish this book. Then I got to the title story, "The Red Carpet." After that, I enjoyed each story, with "Mysore Coffee" being the highlight: a touching, understated look at the legacy of suicide that reveals a surprising way the narrator learns how to cope--by learning how to bring herself out of the passivity that many Indians are culturally taught after viewing an incident in an American McDonald's. What I enjoyed about the latter stories was Sankaran's refusal to cater to Western ideas of what a story about India should be about. These aren't exoticized for the Westerner, instead, are realistic depictions of the changes India has gone through and is continuing to go through, and the confusion that some Indians experience as a result.