A leading figure in travel writing, Lieutenant Julien Viaud, writing under the pseudonym Pierre Loti, made his first trip to India in 1886. Despite its brevity - a stay of just three days on the island of Mahé, south of Kerala - this first trip left an indelible mark on his mind. He recounts his encounters, impressions and adventures in two notable texts. “ Mahé des Indes ”, published in 1887, recounts his stay on the Kerala coast, near Mahé, one of the five French trading outposts at the time. Thirteen years later, inspired by the memories of this brief encounter, Loti embarked on a more ambitious expedition. He set off from the lush landscapes of southern India, which he dubbed “the India of the great palms”, to the arid lands of Rajasthan, which he called “starving India”, before continuing on to Madras and Delhi. This odyssey across India serves as the muse for Loti's travel diary, “ L'Inde (sans les Anglais), ” which delicately balances romantic contemplation with harsh realism. Through vivid, luminous prose, Loti perfectly captures the essence of each stage of his adventure, painting for the reader a multi-faceted portrait of the Indian landscape and its people.