10-05-2025
Bhaichand Patel's 'Across the River'
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, respectively) have grown up in Old Delhi in nearby-but-segregated lanes. When the college-educated young women snag accounting jobs in the same Noida firm circa 2007, their families brace themselves for 'corrupting influences'. Soon, Seema falls in love with her bigoted Gujarati employer's son Mohan.
