Grant put on a lot of weight when touring India (8)
I believe the answer is:
donation
'grant' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'on a lot of weight when touring india' is the wordplay.
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a lot of weight' becomes 'donat' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'when' becomes 'on' (I've seen this in other clues).
'touring' means one lot of letters goes inside another (touring can mean going round).
'india' becomes 'i' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'donat'+'on' is 'donaton'.
'donaton' placed around 'i' is 'DONATION'.
'put' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for donation that I've seen before include "An offering or charitable gift" , "Gift or contribution" , "Gift of money as to charity" , "Do anoint by way of a gift" , "Money given to charity" .)