Sideways on a scooter

Miranda Kennedy is a twentysomething reporter who quits her job in New York and moves to India with no work lined up. She wants to be close to the turmoil and energy of a country changing fast, and she settles in Delhi.

The city quickly corrects her expectations. Finding an apartment as a single woman turns out to be close to impossible, and women are expected to ride scooters perched sideways. Small rules like these show her that daily life is far less Westernized than she had counted on.

This is a memoir of more than five years in Delhi. Kennedy forms friendships, has love affairs and suffers losses. Through them she gets a view into Indian politics and culture, which stay opaque to outsiders. Her own attitudes shift along the way.

She sets out to understand what her new friends hope for and want from life. In doing so she looks past the image of India as a country of call centers and fast-food chains. She finds an older society, where women's lives have in many ways barely changed for centuries. The book reads as personal, observant reporting from the inside of a city and its social rules.