alone, unconnected to a particular national identity. I'll also explore some additional meanings that the title may have.

First, "One Out of Many" echoes the meaning of a traditional motto of America: "E pluribus unum," or "Out of many, one," a nod to our nation's unity despite starting out as thirteen separate colonies. So, the story's title suggests that Santosh is expected to assimilate into American culture, but the phrase's reversal—that is, the unexpected "One Out of Many" instead of the expected "Out of many, one"—suggests that Santosh's cultural assimilation will be complicated, that it won't adhere to our expectations.

Second, "One Out of Many" might mean "One separated from others," as Santosh gradually separates himself from his employer, from whom he used to keep no secrets. "I was content to be a small part of his presence," Santosh muses, but now he no longer sees himself in that way: he is becoming an individual—one out of someone else. He even feels as though he exists outside of reality:

I never felt that [our] apartment was real, like the shabby old Bombay chambers with the cane chairs, or that it had anything to do with me.

Third, "One Out of Many" might mean that Santosh is one person quite separate from the many Americans who seem to live their lives privately, behind closed doors, as if they only truly exist on television, in the commercials for cleaning products that so captivate Santosh's attention:

If by some chance I saw an American on the street I tried to fit him or her into the commercials; and I felt I had caught the person in an interval between his television duties.

Fourth, "One Out of Many" might foreshadow how Santosh discovers his own conspicuousness: his own distinctive good looks. That is, Santosh discovers that he is attractive and that he stands out from the crowd:

Slowly I made a discovery. My face was handsome. I had never thought of myself in this way. I had thought of myself as unnoticeable, with features that served as identification alone.

Finally, "One Out of Many" seems an appropriate title for this story of how Santosh inhabits one world out of many, then another, then another, never truly belonging in any of them. Even in D.C., he thinks this:

The restaurant is one world, the parks and green streets of Washington are another, and every evening some of these streets take me to a third... the dark house in which I now live. Its smells are strange, everything in it is strange. But my strength in this house is that I am a stranger.

In a Free State is a 1971 novel by Trinidadian-British author V. S. Naipaul, who has won many awards in his career.

The first story in the book, titled "One Out of Many," concerns an Indian domestic servant named Santosh. When he travels to America with his employer, an Indian diplomat, his visions of a luxurious life are shattered by reality; his money is almost worthless and he is treated with contempt. After a romantic encounter with a black maid, Santosh descends into guilt and shame, and flees as an illegal alien, taking work as a chef. Despite his minor success as a chef, and his marriage to the maid which makes him a legal citizen, he feels completely isolated and withdraws from society, abandoning his self-worth as an individual.

The title has multiple meanings. The most obvious is that Santosh, in his lust to life a free, American life, is just one non-American out of many who yearns for an ideal that might not exist. His experiences are disillusioning. Santosh is also "one" person out of many in the city, and he is unused to such disregard; although he discovers, and then discards, his individuality, he never quite concludes that his self-worth is dependent on his own actions, instead mourning the country -- and family -- he abandoned for a new country and family to which he will never truly feel connected. Santosh also removes himself from first his own country, and then from his adopted country, becoming "one" alone, out of many.