SHADOW CITY and ORIENTING: On the Road with Two Indian Women Across Asia
Two recent travel books by Indian women—Taran N. Khan’s Shadow City and Pallavi Aiyar’s Orienting—bring a unique, gendered perspective to the social and cultural complexities of expat life in Afghanistan and Japan. By Nileena Sunil
Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘In the proximity / of other gods—other sutras— / we muttered our creed—you // pecking / away at your manual typewriter— / carbon copies of personal letters / home—to the diaspora—we // noodling on the keyboard of happiness’