Pico Iyer, who recently wrote a book on Tibet's spiritual leader, is brilliantly articulate, relaxed and charming. He is also welcoming of anyone who approaches him. One of the most respected travel writers alive today, he attended the Jaipur Literature Festival as both speaker and involved participant

Pico Iyer at the Jaipur Literature Festival Pic/ Saaz Aggarwal

Tell us about your connection with India.
It's that of a fascinated foreigner. I'm a hundred per cent Indian by blood but I've never had a chance to spend enough time here. In the last few years I've been coming almost once a year. It's a revelation of a country I don't know well enough, and of parts of myself that I hadn't seen before.

I've spent all of the last six springs in Dharamsala, working on my recent book, The Open Road about the Dalai Lama.

Your parents are Indians?
Yes, my father's from South India and my mother's from Gujarat. They grew up in Bombay but left at a young age to study at Oxford so they spent the majority of their years outside India. I never heard an Indian language spoken because the only common language between my parents was English. That's part of my past that I would love to reclaim.