Book Review: Best Intentions by Simran Dhir

‘Gayatri will also get married, Nina,’ Ashok Mehra tells his wife consolingly on the day Ashok and Nina’s second daughter Nandini gets married. This opening line immediately transported me to a different world, in a different era, when Rupa Mehra told her second daughter Lata 'You too will marry a boy I choose' on the day that the older daughter, Savita, married Pran Kapoor. Much later in the book, it is revealed that Gayatri is a big fan of A Suitable Boy, as is Akshay, but that revelation isn’t a surprise since Simran Dhir’s debut novel Best Intentions reminds one of Vikram Seth’s magnum opus right from the start, time and again. Just as Seth uses the political and economic landscape of post-independence India as a back-drop to his story, Dhir uses the explosive growth of India’s religious right wing as her canvas, as she tells us the story of how Gayatri navigates the social pressure to get married after her younger sister Nandini settles into matrimonial bliss. Best Intentions does not use up as much paper as A Suitable Boy, around one-fourth I think, but manages to just as successfully spin a good and realistic, romantic-socio-political yarn.

Stop! Isn’t it so wrong to review a novel solely by comparing it with another, even if the comparison is with what’s possibly the finest novel to have come out of India? You bet it is. So, let me say this. Best Intentions is an excellent novel, very well written, gripping till the end and, if it didn’t run to 348 pages, would have been unputdownable. I read it over a single weekend though.

Best Intentions is full of lawyers, of all hues. Nandini is a corporate lawyer, a partner at a leading law firm. Her husband Amar Grewal is also a partner in the same law firm, but with ‘a shitty practice in an area that requires you to be a robot, no thinking whatsoever’, one who gets his deals because of his father. Dhir does not tell us what exactly Amar specializes in, other than imply that it does not call for the same degree of rigor as her specialism. Amar’s relatively poor performance at his job, as compared to Nandini, gives him an inferiority complex, which in turn has a toxic effect on his marriage. Gayatri, the lead protagonist, is a lawyer turned historian, one with an anti-right-wing bias, which causes her to hate Akshay, Amar’s pragmatic brother, who is a litigator just like his father Gyan Singh Grewal. Neelam Bedi, an escapee from a broken marriage, who is generously accommodated by Gyan in his office, is a lawyer too. 

Since all the lead characters (barring Vikram Gera, an investment banker) are lawyers, there is no dearth of confrontations despite the best intentions. However, Dhir’s lawyers, their friends and families are mostly good at heart and learn, adapt, improve and on the whole, make the world a better place. Dhir’s standout achievement is her ability to show both sides of an argument, without harming the yarn being spun.

Dhir’s characters are realistic, too realistic and each of them comes in 5D. Dhir’s English is effortlessly good, though it is never lyrical or flowery and the occasional Hindi is not translated. Often times, Dhir’s characters speak desi English and it just adds to the overall atmosphere.

There are writers who believe in Karma (who make sure the baddies get their comeuppance and the good people their rewards) and there are others who leave karma to God and keep it out of their books. Which way does Dhir’s Best Intentions go? Please do read Best Intentions to find out for yourself.

As many other reviewers have already said, there’s a new writer on the horizon and am anxiously waiting for Dhir’s next novel.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Vikram and his London based boss Akhil Tandon are colourful characters, pirates actually, who form the perfect counterfoil to the various lawyers in the book. Vikram is willing to go to any extent to get what he wants, in this case, getting into Delhi’s moneyed social circle, even if it means he has to string ‘may-get-married-if-all-stars-are aligned’ Gayatri along. One keeps wondering why Gayatri can’t see through Vikram and even Akshay is annoyed on this account. Dhir is so good at making her reader dislike someone and then do a slow flip.

Gayatri sees everything in black and white, but towards the end of the book, we see her appreciating the other side’s arguments and recognising that most people and ideas have a lot of grey in them. The bad ones, who tormented Gayatri and others working at the Indian History Review, are maybe not so bad after all? I found myself nodding in agreement more than once.  

Gayatri initially detests Akshay who she finds very arrogant and snooty, though rather good looking, with a bit of grey around his temples. Towards the middle of the novel, as we've been taught by countless Mills and Boon novels, some sparks start to fly between them. However, after Nandini and Amar crash their marriage, it is inevitable that the embers around Gayatri and Akshay are bound to die, or is it?