I was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas.  My Indian father and English mother met as teachers in Iran and by the age of eleven I had lived in an Indian palace in the Punjab, a flat in a bombed out street in Shepherd’s Bush, a bungalow in Poona, near Mumbai and a terraced house in Ealing. I settled into a little town cottage in Stroud, Gloucestershire twenty five years ago but still love to travel.

With an Indian father and an English mother, I inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout my life, and which always made me feel I belonged to both countries. My childhood memoir, "Out Of India" traces my life, illustrating the experiences from which I draw many of the ideas for my books.

My family settled in England where I completed my schooling and further training as a music student at Trinity College of Music, London. After studies in Paris and Berlin I joined the BBC, first as a Studio Manager in radio, then crossed over to television as a Production Assistant and Director in Music and Arts Programmes. Later, I married Barrie Gavin and we had two children, a son, Rohan and a daughter, Indi. It was then that I began writing children's books, and felt a need to reflect the multi-cultural world in which my children and I lived.

Since my first book, "The Magic Orange Tree" was published in 1979, I have been writing steadily, producing collections of short stories, teenage novels and many books for educational schemes for the whole age range from six to sixteen. My books have included "Grandpa Chatterji", which was short-listed for the Smarties Award and was dramatised for television on Channel 4 Schools, "Monkey in the Stars" which I then dramatised for a commission by the Polka Theatre, where it was performed in the autumn 2000 and "The Surya Trilogy" of which the first, "The Wheel of Surya", was special runner up for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1992, while the others were subsequently all shortlisted for the same award.

My novel, "Coram Boy", set in 18th century England, won the 2000 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award and my first radio play, "The God at the Gate", broadcast as Play for Today on Radio 4 in September 2001, was shortlisted for the Richard Imison Award.