Naomi Mitchison had travelled to India in 1951 and to Madras (Chennai) in 1958, after which she visited her brother Jack. He was by then living an Indian lifestyle in Calcutta (Kolkata) with which she found it difficult to empathise - in stark contrast to her own later immersion in a Botswana community. As was her habit, she sought to understand the country and her reactions to it by looking at the role of women, in their homes and in society...