From the time her first collection of short stories, Arranged Marriage came out in 1995, Divakaruni's works have revolved around the lives of Indian women, on foreign shores and in India. "It was a conscious decision to write about women. In a way life in America exhilarated me. I was able to do so many things which, as someone growing up in the India of the '60s, I never had much access to. Also, the way we as foreigners changed a little bit of the country fascinated me," she says.

Which is probably why her latest novel, Palace of Illusions (Picador, Rs 495), a re-telling of the Mahabharata from Draupadi's perspective seems a departure from her usual approach. "Well, not really, considering that I still look at it from a woman's point of view. Besides, war is a contemporary issue, and how a woman reacts to it is quite different from how a man does," says Divakaruni.

It took her four years to finish her research and write her novel. "It took me double the time because there have been similar writings in contemporary regional languages. I wanted to read them all and ensure that I had something new to say," she says.

Divakaruni's writings have an evocative, almost tangible nostalgia about India. "It's probably because I miss home as intensely as I like being in America. People like Jhumpa (Lahiri) are second generation Indians in America. Their view will obviously be different from ours since we were grown-up when we went and had to adjust to a new culture," smiles the 52-year-old. In the meanwhile, her next book, the final part of the children's trilogy of The Conch Bearer, titled the Shadow Land, is near completion. "It should be out next year," she says.