Join our Instagram channel to discuss our book of the month, Real Life by Amrita Mahale, as we read it. From every-thought-you-had-while-reading to exclusive notes from the author, there’s a lot to unpack here.
For our third title for The Nod Book Club, we picked a book with themes that most readers will be familiar with—love, loss, and friendship. And Mahale’s newest title, Real Life, lines up perfectly. Her second book is set in the foothills of the Himalayas, written from the perspective of diverse characters: two women with lives as intertwined yet as far apart as can be, and a man living a different reality.
So, what is Real Life about?
Tara and Mansi, Mansi and Tara, are friends whose names go together in the way those of old friends and couples do; it’s either both or none. In this novel, their friendship is the main protagonist. The first chapter begins with the news that Tara is missing without a trace—she’s a wildlife biologist researching wild dog packs in the Himalayas. Her best friend, Mansi, arrives in Jora, the small mountain town packed with foreign tourists and trekkers where Tara lives, to look for her.
The prime suspect is Bhaskar, a man whom Mansi inadvertently introduced to Tara and one who is seemingly obsessed with her. At first glance, it looks like an open-and-shut case, but half-truths and new facts and perspectives emerge, complicating the search for Tara. Written from the point of view of Tara, Mansi, and Bhaskar, a full picture emerges of each character: how Bhaskar’s past experiences in college, intertwined with Mansi and Tara, now colour his present; how Mansi’s marriage is unravelling one silence at a time; and how Tara’s choices drive her into the fold of the mountains.
Why should I pick it?
It is first and foremost a story about friendship. Tara and Mansi are childhood friends who come from very different circumstances, united by a love for animals and childhood heroes. Through the course of their relationship, Mahale deftly touches upon topics relevant to our times—class divides, caste, feminism, marriage, AI ethics, and even the immigrant experience—all in a way that manages to not be preachy. You will find that one line that makes you sigh in empathy or shake your head at in exasperation, because it is, of course, real life. Case in point, when Mansi says, “Strong women don’t grow from trees, they grow from girls like you and me.” Or Tara: “She will be thirty next year. It should not bother her, but it does.” If you want some food for thought, in a form that feels easy to digest, pick up Real Life as your next read.
Tell me a little about the author
Amrita Mahale was born in Mumbai and grew up in five cities across India. Milk Teeth, her first novel, was a quintessential Bombay novel, and was published to widespread acclaim in 2018. It was longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature and shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award for Fiction. She was trained as an aerospace engineer at IIT Bombay and Stanford University. Real Life is her second novel.
