Matteo leaves home to search for spiritual enlightenment of India.His friend Sophie desides to trace the Mother's own story from her travels with an Indian dance group in Paris Venice and New York. ( )

An interesting book. It seems to start as a critique of the faux inspiration that foreigners "find" from questionable gurus in India, finding "enlightenment" in the oddest people or beliefs, as it traces the peregrinations of an oddly matched pair: Matteo, an Italian, who is consumed by the desire to find truth in the east, and Sophie, a German who is a hard-headed realist, but smitten by love of Matteo and willing to follow him on his quest; to a point. The story turns when Matteo and Sophie finally end up in a commune run by and dedicated to the "Mother". Sophie has two children and eventually leaves India to take the kids home to be raised by their Italian grandparents. Sophie then sets out on her own pilgrimage to discover the truth of the "Mother" who, it turns out, is of Egyptian origin, a wild and precocious young woman who fell totally under the spell of an Indian who dances and manages an Indian dance troupe that travels to Italy and America, living off the generosity of patrons. Laila (the "Mother"), is an interesting character: full of life, of intensity, of determination. She finds that the Indian, Krishna, is not what she thought and she ends up in India alone where she takes up with an enlightened one, founds a commune with him, and carries on after his death.