Book excerpt: Dorothy Ada Notley left the UK aged 23, on a steamship to sail to India to be a missionary, in January 1948, five months after Indian Independence and partition from Britain. Undaunted by this she embraced the country, the Hindi language and the people at a time when many British were leaving! Her detailed diaries record her extraordinary life there until 1959 along with many more trips and adventures there later in her life. She had wanted to return to Shillong for her 90th birthday but sadly a stroke, dementia and a new hip at the age of 90, made this impossible for her. This book shows her love, her fascination and her frustrations with this vast South Asian country, and more importantly her unwavering faith shines through it all.