Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra
Red Earth and Pouring Rain is an epic tale of nineteenth-century India - of Sanjay, a poet, and Sikander, a warrior; of hoofbeats thundering through the streets of Calcutta and the birth of a luminous child; of great wars and love affairs and a city gone mad with poetry. Woven into it are the adventures of a young Indian criss-crossing America in a car with his friends.