Returning to India grew to be like a second homecoming. Touchdown was nearly always Mumbai - which for a decade I knew as Bombay - and each time, as the aircraft powered forward, dipping towards the runway, those snapshot glimpses of an uneven terrain crammed with shanty dwellings would resume in my view. More and more this struck me as a symbol of why I was there in the first place, for it was perhaps the most extreme lifestyle interface one could imagine: high-tech jumbos gliding past squalid slums. Neither existence could touch the other … and one certainly did not want to.

After passing through Dadar’s broad station entrance, I was faced with what looked like an almost impenetrable pack of people, plus a squadron of maroon-clad figures clamoring for my business. “Railway station porters,” Priti had said, as I was leaving her place the evening before, “Can make your life so much easier.” I dutifully handed my bag to an older man with a white beard and a maroon turban to match his shirt ....

Re-arrival in India is akin to Armstrong on the moon a second time round. Loved it before but knowing it again feels like re-inventing the wheel: once the spokes are back in place you know you’re getting somewhere. Bombay was still Bombay and arrivals the same dismal place I remembered. But thrilled to be back, for me the down-market musty halls took on another meaning: an intriguing gateway to a hitherto world of enthrall!

Resplendent in orange robes supported by black beard, she screamed at me with all the power her young lungs could muster. As the revered Freedom Fighter, Alluri Sitarama Raju, she taunted me in animated fashion. I am the visiting dignitary from a faraway place, diminished by this slip of a girl with the voice of a veteran. The message was crystal clear: a revolutionary leader showing determination and pride in the face of an exploitative ruler.

Often writers go to great lengths to explain why travelling second class in India is so much better than the first-class version. That comes to me as a sort of reverse elitism: ‘’I’m a privileged story-teller, from the first world, but for this journey, I will sit on a wooden bench and bear the stink from the overflowing latrine. I will pretend I can mix and match with Indians poorest; they are so much more engaging than the rich.’’

So here I sit, not long after the crack of dawn, astride an old wooden chair, positioned dead-centre, with a microphone on a tall metal stand in front of me. To my left, with jet-black hair and dressed like a queen in a beautiful azure and white, sequined saree, sits the school’s director and principal, Dr Mabel Aranha; a somewhat formidable figure, attending her final Republic Day parade, before retirement. To my right a considerably more jovial character, the white-mustachioed Mister Mirchandani .....

This was the second revelation in as many months. He thought of it as a revelation because that was the way it happened. The thing, the topic, the subject, was slowly, painstakingly revealed, layer by layer, until the complete answer was spread before him. It was as if someone was saying, ‘’look this is the way it is (you idiot!). DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN MORE?’’

A 24-hour curfew – or 'bandh' as it’s known in India - has been in force for two days now. Marooned at Juhu Beach: all shops closed, streets deserted. I cannot buy anything, cannot go anywhere: a captive of this gracious, but now prison-like hotel! How things have changed in just a few short days. Penned two letters to family, scrapped both, deciding they were outdated and overtaken by events. All schools have closed, my work at a standstill.

I’d forgotten what it’s like to be surrounded by fifty tuk-tuks - or auto rickshaws as they call them here - all burbling away contentedly at the lights, belching toxic fumes into each other’s path; or to sit on a tiny stool under the gaze of a thousand eyes, as a small Gandhian figure dressed in white, squats cross-legged on the ground, stitching my shoe back together again ...

Agra was a special spot on the map for me: the first Indian city I had visited outside what was then Bombay. Like a second kiss, it played an important part in building my relationship with an amazing country. Returning to Agra almost two decades after my first visit was quite special. India and I were now 20 years older and much had changed for both of us during the intervening period.

Country of customs, colours and contrasts, India is a place that reaches out to test all our senses, at times to their limits; love it or loath it some people say. In a chaotic marketplace with cows, cars and humankind jostling for coveted space, the sights, the sounds, the smells of India can sometimes overwhelm. But immerse yourself in all this: ask questions about the vividly coloured dyes, listen to the strange looking gadgets on Juhu Beach and taste the sweet sugarcane offered in friendship, then you can begin to love India …like no place on Earth!

It was a baffling experience. Why would men – and men only - sit drinking beer, or whatever their tipple, whilst watching a fashion show, which consisted of young ladies walking around and around in a circle, endlessly; fully decked out in colourful sarees and salwar kameez? They were all dressed exquisitely. Could that be the clue?