Agastya Sen (Rahul Bose), nicknamed "English, August", speaks and thinks in English. A lover of poetry, he listens to Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, rock, and jazz, and reads Marcus Aurelius. He is also an Indian Administrative Service Officer, a member of the most influential and powerful cadre of civil servants in India. He is sent off for a year's training to Madna, the hottest town in the country. Culture shock and a language barrier in his own country follows (August's mother tongue is Bengali). He feels like a foreigner, but must survive. He's surrounded by wild characters: Srivastava, the pompous head bureaucrat and his wife Malti, the fashion and cultural leader of the town; Sathe, a local pothead and cartoonist; Kumar, the Police Superintendent and connoisseur of porn films; and Vasant, the world's worst cook. August negotiates this provincial creek with the only paddle he can find; fantasy, daydreams and "self-abuse" become his means of revolt and escape as he escapes from the heat into the mystery and quiet of his secret world of erotic fantasy and contemplation.