…st book that took me to India was an epic tale called Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra. If you sit a monkey at a typewriter, he might not come up with the complete works of Shakespeare, but he could tell some incredible stories about the magic of India. I suspect that Shakespearean England is simply not colorful enough for a monkey’s sensibilities. But India… ah, there a monkey can be a writer of magical and heroic tales.