Heavenly Hirani's School of Laughing Yoga
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Sanjay looking on as I blub.
It is more beautiful in real life than in the pictures — and beyond romantic. I still cry when I think about it, because I don’t truly think I ever expected to get there, and I am just so enormously blessed that I did.
Back in Mumbai, I did not have a pedicure, but instead enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Nikhila Palat, the Taj Palace Hotel’s director of PR, who gave me even more insight into the Mumbaikar way of life.
My laundry is bigger than your laundry.
And back across the Sea Link in Room 1802 at the Taj Lands End, I must thank Ashok, our housekeeper, who every morning came in and tidied up my desk, while I worked at it. I loved that man, even more so when he knocked on my door one afternoon and, having seen a card the Ginger had made out of a photo of the two of us for my birthday, produced a frame, put the photo in, placed it carefully on the desk, smiled, and departed.
Not everybody has my kind of experience in India, but I’m not everybody, I’m just me; and this book is my love-letter to a place on the planet and a space in time that put a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart that will never go away.
Helping bring it to life has been the team at Random House New Zealand. Everything about this book has been a pleasure, even its production, which is not always the case. So for this I would like to thank Karen Ferns for bringing me home, the wonderful Nicola Legat for her wisdom, guidance, grace and humour, and her incomparable team of Megan Van Staden, Kate Stone, freelancer Kate O’Donnell and, as always, my ‘travelling companion’, Jennifer Balle.
It takes a village: the team at Random House. From left: Jennifer, Kate (with people’s pooch Dawkins), Megan and Nicola.
About the Author
SARAH-KATE LYNCH is one of New Zealand’s most successful novelists and a much-loved magazine columnist. Reading ‘Date with Sarah-Kate’ in Woman’s Day is like catching up with her every week for a coffee — something it can be hard to do in real life, given that she’s also the magazine’s travel editor. This means she’s often abandoning the dog and her husband, film production designer and art director Mark Robins, and fleeing solo to foreign parts. In the case of Heavenly Hirani’s School of Laughing Yoga, however, it was Mark who did the fleeing — although Sarah-Kate refused to be abandoned, so she went too. The dog was not so lucky. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or find all of the above at her website: sarah-katelynch.com.
Also by Sarah-Kate Lynch
FINDING TOM CONNOR
A jilted bride escapes New Zealand and follows a wild-goose chase to the twisted Irish town of Ballymahoe, where what’s she’s looking for and what she finds turn out to be two very different prospects.
BLESSED ARE
Two ageing Irish cheese-makers try to matchmake a new generation of dairy producers, to continue their magical farm where cows are milked to The Sound of Music by pregnant unmarried vegetarians.
BY BREAD ALONE
A heartbroken baker living in a fairy-tale tower on the English coast hankers after the one she left behind — a saucy boulanger with whom she rolled in the flour in happier times.
EATING WITH THE ANGELS
A New York food critic finds a spanner in her works when she wakes up without a sense of taste and has to rediscover all the delicious things in life from scratch.
THE HOUSE OF PEINE
Three estranged sisters inherit a crumbling Champagne house, and have to bottle their differences to protect the precious family elixir for future generations.
ON TOP OF EVERYTHING
A distracted wife believes bad things usually happen in threes until she gets six of them in a row — but it’s written in the tea leaves that good things can come in clusters as well.
DOLCI DI LOVE
A workaholic Manhattanite discovers her husband has a secret family in Tuscany and goes to find them, but instead gets caught up in a web of interfering widowed Italian matchmakers.
THE WEDDING BEES
A mysterious southerner arrives in New York with nothing but a hive of bees and an insistence on good manners, and sets about improving the lives of everyone in her orbit.
SCREW YOU DOLORES
Sarah-Kate’s Wicked Approach to Happiness is about knowing when to do what someone tells you and when to stick it up their jacksie. It’s also about shoes-hopping in Paris, friendship, dogs and milestones.
For more information about our titles please visit
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Copyright
A BLACK SWAN BOOK published by Random House New Zealand, 18 Poland Road,
Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand
For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand
Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group
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First published 2014
© 2014 Sarah-Kate Lynch
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 77553 705 2 eISBN 978 1 77553 706 9
This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Design: Megan van Staden
Cover images, contributors: Grenouille Films; KRISS75; Csondy; hpkalyani/iStock
Photograph of John Hamm: Steve Vas, Featureflash/shutterstock
Printed in Australia by Griffin Press an Accredited ISO AS/ NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer.
The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council® Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.
This title is also available as an eBook