This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. The first welcome I had in Pali Hill was from a rooster. I’d just entered my bedroom in the Airbnb rental. It was about three-thirty in the morning. As I put down my suitcase, exhausted after eighteen hours of flying and lots of airport waiting, a series of mournful … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. I’m filing this on my last day of a wonderful three weeks in Mumbai. I was taking a walk through a shady, old-fashioned passageway in a typical 19th century shop building in the Colaba neighborhood. It was a delightful meander just steps from the historic Royal Bombay Yacht Club, … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. There’s a poignant food moment during Made in Heaven, the gorgeous Amazon drama set in New Delhi, that makes me hungry remembering it. Tara, the show’s beautiful and troubled heroine, is alone at night when she buys a snack called golgappas from a street vendor. Golgappas are mini puris stuffed … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. These days, photography seems to have become an expected skill for writers. Confession: I like to take pictures, but I don’t understand how to artfully compose them or wait until the right moment to get a great shot. I wish I’d learned more during my years as a … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. Have you heard about gratitude lists? Writing down what one is grateful for, every night, is said to benefit psychological health, sleep, and relations with others. I’ve been marking small bits of gratitude down in my trusty bullet journal of 2018, a dog-eared book that is entering into its last … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. On a hot Saturday afternoon in early October, I was in the Mumbai Harbour, taking the slow tourist boat back from the cave temples on Elephanta Island. The water journey had been almost two hours, and I had only a few drops of water left in my bottle. … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. A couple of years ago, I spent a thrilling day shopping for art in galleries the Kala Ghoda district of Mumbai. The upshot is I came home with a gorgeous modern abstract painting found in a an old British Raj building on Rampart Row in Mumbai, very close … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. It’s too easy to twist your ankle while walking through India. Streets and sidewalks have irregular surfaces, and there are many distractions, ranging from speeding cars and motorcyclists creating their own laws to horses and goats. So I only feel like my footing is truly firm indoors, and … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. On my recent sojourn in India, I kept a lookout for animals. This is because I’m striving to write a lot more about animals in my books. They may not solve a crime or talk (thank God!) but they will be characters. In my book-in-progress, Perveen Mistry 2, … Read more
This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. Kitab is the Urdu/Hindi word for book and is pronounced just as it sounds. I find it a lovely word. So too was my recent book tour in India for A Murder on Malabar Hill, A Perveen Mistry Investigation. You might notice the similarity in title to The Widows of Malabar Hill, … Read more