Sophie and Matteo are young and in love and share dissatisfaction with their bourgeois Italian upbringing Naturally, like so many other young Westerners in the sixties and seventies, they come to India. But the realities of life in an ashram ignite their differences; Sophie wants to be a tourist and go to Goa and eat shrimp, which Matteo scorns, seeking the real India. Pragmatic Sophie is disillusioned by the hardships they encounter which her husband, who yearns for spiritual fulfilment, sees only the purity of ascetic life, leading him to Mother, a charismatic guru.

 Author:- Anita Desai