In her new book, Orienting: An Indian in Japan (HarperCollins India), Pallavi Aiyar writes with charm, humour and occasional bafflement about the many things that made life in Japan seem stranger than fiction. Among these were the sight of children as young as six navigating some of the world’s busiest intersections unsupervised, the celebrity status accorded to flowering trees, the incredible art on manhole covers with motifs of cherry blossom petals, castles, lighthouses, ocean scenes, and elements of local festivals, and the deadly pufferfish that was frequently served as a delicacy. “There could be enough poison in a single pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans,” Aiyar writes with consternation. The bizarre didn’t end here. She saw vending machines that offered everything from cooked meals to origami, and the unbelievably clean ‘smart toilets’ that resembled airplane cockpits, and were equipped to check the user’s blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar and body-fat ratio, all the while playing chirping bird music for the easily embarrassed.

The book, which took a year to write, is based on research and reportage. Aiyar feels lodged in a perpetual proto-writing stage, absorbing her surroundings, and reading deeply about the places she inhabits. At the same time, her brain makes constant connections, she says. “I try to understand new places not only in isolation, but by connecting them to other cultures/societies that I am familiar with. I believe that it is often in comparisons that the most revealing insights lie,” says the author in an email conversation with mid-day.