"It's the sense of suspicion. In Delhi you have to have material wealth for someone to know you, in the South people will say what caste are you? In Kolkata, they will want to know who your grandfather was ... But Delhi is about which minister you know! Delhi is so aggressive!" De quipped.

She added: "It's not Delhi that I hate, there are aspects about the life here that I find disturbing. It is aggressive to women professionals and very feudalistic in mindset."

De's India is full of dichotomies, dilemmas and fears that characterise the just-arrived developing world, post globalisation.

"The book reflects my deep understanding of the past and my concern for the middle class. I look at the new heritage word that gets pulled out at all occasions and India's efforts to come to globalization. I also applaud its ethos of competitiveness, but I feel that the whole scenario is taken over by the killer instinct of materialism. Money talks ... and I feel its an assault on traditional values."

A prolific writer, De has 15 books to her credit. A former model and erstwhile editor of Stardust, one of the country's most popular movie magazines, she is an authority on the Indian film industry.