Westland Books launches Annabel Mehta’s Memoir, My Passage to India

THE CANDID ACCOUNT OF AN UNUSUAL LIFE SPENT BETWEEN ENGLAND AND INDIA.

My Passage To India is a candid memoir by Annabel Mehta, moving between England and India to unveil stories from a lesser known life.

by Priya Jadhav

July 2024, National: Westland books launched the delightful memoir of Annabel Mehta, who is best known for her work with Apnalaya, an NGO that works for underprivileged children in Mumbai. My Passage to India is an account of an unusual life spent between England and India, charting the story of a city and a nation from the 1960s to the present day through the eyes of an English woman who followed her heart into this adventure.

Speaking on the launch of her book, Annabel Mehta said, “A chance meeting at a college social in London, a flight to India, the warmest of welcomes, and I never looked back. The journey continues. Delving deep to share some reflections has been an intriguing process.”

Co-author Georgina Brown said, “I hope that everyone is as fascinated by Annabel’s remarkable story as I have been. Charting Annabel's passage to India became my own introduction to this endlessly fascinating country. It’s been a rich and rewarding journey and, finally, we have arrived!”

About the Book: THE CANDID ACCOUNT OF AN UNUSUAL LIFE SPENT BETWEEN ENGLAND AND INDIA.

Annabel Mehta is known to many as the founder of Apnalaya, a non-profit that focuses on providing a better life to underprivileged children in Mumbai, and to many more as the mother of Anjali Tendulkar, wife of India's favourite cricketer, Sachin (God!) Tendulkar. In this book, she opens up for the first time about both of these aspects of her life in Mumbai, starting with her arrival in the city in the 1950s to spend time with her boyfriend Anand Mehta and his family, much to the dismay of her own family and friends in England. Annabel writes honestly and thoughtfully about the roller-coaster ride that followed: love, marriage, motherhood, and also grief and bereavement. There was, too, the challenges of setting up and running an organisation that demanded both relentless hard work and faith to keep it going against tremendous odds.

A snapshot into the changing fortunes of a family and a city, My Passage to India is elegant and effortlessly engaging.

About the Author: Annabel Mehta is the founder of ‘Apnalaya’, a non-profit organisation that works for underprivileged children in Mumbai.

Georgina Brown is a journalist and writer based in London.

About Westland Books: Westland Books is an award-winning Indian publisher with a diverse and exciting range of books from popular and literary fiction to business, politics, biography, spirituality, popular science, health and self-help. Its key publishing imprints include Context, which publishes award-winning literary fiction and non-fiction; Eka, which publishes the best of contemporary writing in Indian languages and in translation; Tranquebar, home to the best new fiction from the Indian subcontinent; the eponymous Westland Sport, Westland Business and Westland Non-Fiction, and Red Panda, which publishes a range of books for children of different ages.