AMERICAN CONNECTION

Malachy Nugent, Vice President, Financial Services, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, reveals the joy of discovering Indian street food and offbeat local experiences in a tête-à-tête with

for its spice combinations, so almost every dish is a unique experience, be it grilled meats and curries from a high- end restaurant in Delhi or a paneer kathi roll (a kind of wrap) from a street vendor in Kolkata, both of which can be topped off with mango lassi (yoghurt drink) or kulfi (Indian ice cream).

Salman Rushdie is one of my favourite authors, so trips to India often inspire me to reread one of his classics, like Midnight’s Children. I also like Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns and The Last Mughal. Slightly more obscure, but equally gratifying, are the works of Easterine Kire, who chronicles her life in the state of Nagaland in Northeast India. Kire is the first Naga author to have her work translated into English, and spoke this year at the Jaipur Literature Festival.