BRAVE OF HEART

In her debut book, Mansi Choksi paints a sombre, compelling portrait of three couples who defy all odds to be together in modern India

- Shikha Kumar

In popular culture, especially Bollywood, there's a sense of urgency that accompanies the act of elopement: couples hatching swift plans to sidestep family diktats or religious restrictions, rounding up their most precious belongings and running away in the dead of night. This wasn't the case with Neetu Rani and Dawinder Singh, a Hindu-Sikh couple living in neighbouring houses in the Kakheri village of Haryana. Two nights after Dawinder dropped off a bottle of sleeping pills for Neetu to spike her parents' food with, he helped her haul four suitcases containing clothes to last a month, old family albums, stuffed animals, and a life-size poster of herself she'd had taken in a professional studio.