The first tale concerns an Indian servant from Bombay who, having no real alternative at home, accompanies his master on a diplomatic mission to Washington, D.C.

The servant lives in what is virtually a cupboard, and inadvertently blows several weeks' salary just buying a snack.

The second story features an extended South Asian family in the rural West Indies, in which one wealthy cousin manages to humiliate another, the narrator.

He works long hours in demeaning jobs to support his brother's studies, but eventually makes enough money to set up his own business in a restaurant.

The king, although favored by the colonial settlers, is weak and on the run, while the president is poised to take absolute power.

Things go from bad to worse when they put up at a hotel, run by an old colonel who refuses to adapt to the new conditions of independence.

The two reach their destination, but not before visiting the site where the nation's old king was recently murdered; encountering a philosophical Hindu who is planning to move to Egypt; and observing the beginnings of a genocidal wave of violence.

Naipaul decided to publish the central narrative of this work as a standalone novel due to the various changes that he perceived had happened in the world.