I have a date with Elizabeth Gilbert. Perhaps the stars aligned. Perhaps it is because we share a publisher. The fact is that we are chatting under a garden umbrella in the sprawling lawns of her hotel in Jaipur and enjoying the warmth of the winter sun over idlis and cups of steaming masala chai. A few days ago, I’d met her briefly at the Jaipur Literature Festival. So struck was I by Gilbert’s openness and exceptional warmth that I felt I had to meet her again. So here we are today, chatting about life, love, writing and womanhood She is draped in an exquisite grey pashmina with blue peacocks embroidered all over it. We are women, after all, we must get the conversation about shopping out of the way first. “Isn’t it just stunning?

Two sisters from different parts of the world reunite on a trip to the South of France and revel in the aesthetic pleasures of its countryside….My week on the Cote D’Azur in the autumn of 2019 was my last holiday before the pandemic. The world at the time was innocent to the blow it was about to be dealt in the form of the COVID-19 virus merely two months later. I wrote this piece soon after my return from France. I was on a high, the smell of lavender still lingered in the clothes that had just been pulled out of my suitcase. Little did I realise that it would be a long time before my story would appear and that when it did, it would end up reading like a fable from a long,

The Taj Mahal may symbolise eternal love, but a walk through the others forts and palaces of Agra reveals stories more layered I’m walking within the ramparts of the expansive Agra Fort—the main residence of the emperors of the Mughal Dynasty, along with my tour guide Nitin Singh, and listening to him talk about Emperor Akbar and Jodha Bai. Nitin is a history graduate and a licensed guide who has escorted some of the country’s most distinguished guests including Macaron, Trump and Bolsonaro over the past twenty years. I’ve spent the previous two days trying to saturate my senses with the beauty of the Taj Mahal, which looks only more splendid with each viewing. That Shah Jahan loved Mumtaz Mahal and after her death, spent his remaining years sustained only by the sight of the makbara