India, Oct. 12 -- Dear Reader,

I grew up in a family where eating with one's hands was considered uncouth. My Oxbridge-educated grandfathers were in awe of all things Western, from the opera to the art of eating with a knife and fork.

A memory of this came back to me recently, as I was reading Ali and Nino, a classic love story set in Azerbaijan. It's a gem of a tale, a Romeo and Juliet love story across religions - Ali Khan is a Shirvanshir, a Shia who loves nothing better than to sit in the old town of Baku, close to the mosque and dream of the desert. He falls in love with Nino, a pretty Georgian Christian girl whose version of hell is being abducted for her wedding, being forced to wear a veil and made part of a harem.

Everything a...