Deep Ties

  Manali Desai’s latest book title ‘Love and (Mellow) Drama’ reads like a Bollywood romcom with all its twists and turns. It showcases romance and friendship as two sides of the same coin. Relationships play a significant role throughout the narrative, which is peppered with lyrics from Hindi songs and movies, provoking in the readers a sense of deja vu as they look forward to that happily-ever-after moment.  Gayatri Kulkarni and her beau, Varun Agarwal, are the two main protagonists who lead the reader on to a merry dance with their blow hot - blow cold romance. Gayatri with her passion for dancing and her choice of Political Science in college comes across as a bubbly drama queen with a penchant for Bollywood movies like DDLJ. Varun is the quintessential Mills and Boon hero who sweeps the heroine off her feet, even when she loses her footing and falls into his arms.  Many delightful characters pepper the book - Ayesha and Abhi (Varun's exuberant brother), Sharad (Gayatri's br

                                                                        Unsplash   They called her the girl with chutzpah, who could take on the world and joust with windmills! She appeared from nowhere with long pigtails and the face of an angel. From the start, there was an aura about her, a coldness almost, which people noticed. Yet, she had chutzpah, a word that her friends had no idea about. It was more of an instinct, the idea that no one could mess with her. One glance from those gimlet eyes could quell even the highest spirits. Anyone who messed with the girl found themselves in hot water soon enough. Aman, who had taken her favourite pen surreptitiously, found his notebooks floating in water, the blue ink all smudged and unreadable. Suchitra who had scoffed at her hairstyle suddenly discovered chewing gum stuck in her own hair. The hairdresser had to cut off a portion of it, leaving a bald spot that quite broke her heart. What was terrifying was that Jessica was ne