American writer Alexander Keefe knows a thing or two about India that several Indians don't. An MA in Sanskrit from Harvard University, who spent a year in Varanasi in 1995 to learn Sanskrit for "as long as I could stand it," he has studied Urdu and classical Persian seriously.

Thanks to the family he lived with, in Assi Ghat, who spoke no English, and the four years he spent in Delhi from 2004 to 2008, he is fluent in Hindi, and Punjabi swear words. As a Fulbrighter, he lived for a year in Rajasthan and Gujarat in 2003, and can read Gujarati "pretty smoothly, including archaic forms of the language." He's also spent his life "learning, writing and talking about India." And, of the several subjects he's touched upon, from photographers such as Gauri Gill to classical musicians such as Pran Nath, he's also written "two love letters to India, but love in separation, as they say."