On this armchair travel adventure I wanted to venture back to India. It’s the one country on earth that provided the most inspiration for little Nina and also grown-up Nina. My parents talked of a magical place that mixed chaos and exceptional beauty and when I finally went there with my mom, in my early twenties, I was mesmerized.

I love Indian food, grew up on Hindi cinema and dressed in kurtas and salwar kameez for most of my teenage years and twenties — even dated an Indian man I met on the NYC subway thinking he was the one. He wasn’t.