Episode 172: Monisha Rajesh
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Monisha Rajesh is a travel writer who focuses on train travel adventures.
She wrote her first book ‘Around India in 80 Trains’ after being made redundant, and she wrote ‘Around the World in 80 Trains’ just after her first daughter was born. My favourite of all though is Moonlight Express, her most recent book which is all about her experiences on night trains.
Monisha is a lovely writer, and I love so many of the pictures she paints of her journeys. One particular favourite is when she is travelling in India and the train door is open to the elements, and hearing the slap of leaves on the side of the train as it trundles along at just above jogging pace. Also I love the descriptions of dining cars. I flipping love a dining car!
Monisha talked about taking her two small daughters on train adventures and I feel very inspired to do the same. I hope if I do that I am as brave as she is in imposing a ban on screens for my small people. I want us to look out the window and see all the little worlds going by.
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Spexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, age between seven years old and nearly 22, so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:23.6 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. |
| 0:30.6 | I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to spinning plates. Good day. It is Friday morning and this |
| 0:45.0 | week has been quite off. I think it's quite a tricky week isn't it? Because we're three weeks into |
| 0:51.0 | January. It's been very cold and dark in the UK. We've had lots of rain. |
| 0:58.6 | So that means lots of mornings where you open the curtains and you're like, oh. And nobody's |
| 1:06.5 | okay. I think me and the kids have been feeling a little bit more tired this week. |
| 1:21.1 | That being said, I'm very much enjoying some home time because two weeks from now, I will be in Australia. |
| 1:25.8 | So I know that's pretty jammy. |
| 1:28.3 | It's going to be all nice and warm. And I can't deny it, I'm looking forward to it. |
| 1:30.3 | I start off in Australia. |
| 1:31.3 | I'm singing at the men's final of the Australian tennis singles, |
| 1:37.3 | which is exciting. |
| 1:39.3 | That's in Melbourne, and then I fly to New Zealand for a few dates there, |
| 1:43.3 | and then back to Australia for a few more |
| 1:45.8 | dates. |
| 1:47.0 | So come on, that's pretty nice, isn't it? |
| 1:49.7 | Also, these are my first ever solo shows in Australia and New Zealand. |
| 1:54.7 | Am I repeating myself? |
| 1:55.8 | I probably talked about that last week. |
... |
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