The Rope in the Water is the story of Sylvia Fraser's three-month pilgrimage to India in search of "something larger than myself, something deeper, something more" Travelling 12,000 kilometres across deserts and through jungles, she visits sacred sites such as the twilight city of Varanasi on the Ganges, dense with the smoke of hundreds of funeral pyres; north to the glittering Golden Temple of the Sikhs; up Mount Abu where she stays with a Hindu sect called the Brahma Kumaris; south to a Buddhist retreat where she meditates 11 hours a day for 10 days while observing a vow of silence; and to the beach in Kovalam where her life is saved by a miracle. Fraster employs her lyrical yet incisive writing style to bring alive the sense-luscious tapestry of India even as she explores Eastern concepts such as 'You see what you are', 'You create your own future', and most importantly, 'Change yourself and you change everything,' sparked by occasional dialogues with her enigmatic Indian guru.