Published by Nicholas Brealey, 2017, 288 pages.

Looking out of her window on a foggy London day, Monisha Rajesh feels she needs a change. So begins her journey to India. Rajesh’s family had moved back to India from Sheffield in the early 1990s for a traumatic two years. She feels that she and India had “parted on bad terms” and decides, 20 years later, to give the country another chance. In a nod to Jules Verne (Around the World in 80 Days), she will take 80 trains. 

Being Indian, and having travelled on trains a lot when I lived there, this book is particularly close to my heart. With the horror stories about women travelling alone in India, Rajesh’s solo train experience was the same as mine 30 years ago. Like her, I was in a compartment with five men, and instead of being harrassed, I was looked after. One of the men even insisted on buying me breakfast. (“You must eat.”)

Rajesh’s descriptions of India and Indians also struck a chord. Indians have no problem asking complete strangers personal questions: “with the proficiency of a pickpocket they extract details ranging from your salary and star sign, to your brand of mobile phone and any unusual birthmarks”.  Rajesh makes it all come alive: the man selling coffee and tea on the train calling out his wares, “carfee, carfee, chai-carfeeee”; a red sari among tall grass, “like a single tulip in a field of green”, a fruit seller squatting by his basket, counting out a wad of money. I’ve decided that it’s time I took an Indian train again.

Read my interview with Monisha Rajesh.

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.