Love Across Lines

BHAICHAND PATELS NOVELACROSS THE RIVER EXPLORES THE TENSION BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY THROUGH THE LIVES OF TWO YOUNG WOMEN FROM OLD DELHI

- -Aditya Mani Jha

ACROSS THE RIVER By Bhaichand Patel SPEAKING TIGER ₹499; 240 pages

Hindu-Muslim romances, once commonplace in Indian English literature, have all but vanished from its pages-even the latest notable exception, Geetanjali Shree's Our City That Year, is a 1990s Hindi novel recently translated into English. Because of this, the first act of Bhaichand Patel's Across the River feels really strong. The novel's twin protagonists. Seema Chaudhry and Madhu Gupta (a Muslim and a Hindu woman, respec-