Like so many other young Westerners in the 60s and 70s, Matteo leaves home to search for spiritual enlightenment in the ashrams of India. He believes he finds it at the feet of `the Mother', but down-to-earth Sophie, who accompanies him, does not find her inspiring so much as mysterious, and decides to trace the Mother's own story -- from her travels with an Indian dance troupe in Paris, Venice and New York to her search for divine love in India.

Anita Mazumdar Desai (born June 24, 1937) is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times. Her daughter, the author Kiran Desai, won the 2006 Booker prize.