Writing, particularly fiction, is often seen as an act of self-expression. Authors have, time and again, borrowed from their own lives and experiences, sometimes to relive and celebrate a glorious past, at other times simply to weave an engaging tale. The former is true for Nidhi Dalmia’s Afternoon.
At the centre of the tale is Rajiv who, like the author, is a St. Stephen’s college alumnus. Set in the 1960s, the book traverses between Delhi and Kashmir in India and New York and San Francisco Bay Area in the US to tell the story of love—passionate and kind, inter-religious and trans-continental, the love of youth and of one’s life. But, there is only so much originality that clichés can offer.
Readers first meet the protagonist as a college student in Delhi, where he falls in love with a Kashmiri Muslim girl, raised in the capital. As he gets intertwined in the memories of her homeland, the two embark on a torrid romance that unfortunately comes to an end prematurely, when she moves back to Kashmir.
Soon the plot moves to his next romantic interest—Catherine, an American field service worker from New York, who undergoes a “transformative experience” during her visit to India. The transition from one love story to another is abrupt. Which is why the novel, despite using evocative writing, fails to have the desired impact.
The arc of their affair appears to have been lifted straight out of a quintessential Bollywood film, with all the initial jitters, fluttering of the hearts and the final union with the wedding seal. But, because love can transcend boundaries, the author sends Catherine back to the US to put their marriage through the test of time and distance. The obviousness of the story is the nail in its coffin, and even Dalmia’s adornment of a prose cannot save it.
The only bit where the book is readable is its recollection of the 60s’ Delhi, New York and San Francisco. It is evident that the author has spent significant time in these places, absorbing their culture and politics. His love of these cities is the only love that is palpable through the book. Whether it was the Beatles frenzy or the lingering Cold War sentiment at the time, or the student politics scene in Delhi University, Dalmia writes passionately. But in the absence of forward-moving narrative, all the effort behind the artful recreation of these historical events seems to have gone to waste.
Afternoon, which reads more like the author’s diary entry, is missable. It only warrants a place on the shelves of those who wish to romanticise the Sixties, although for that too, there are better alternatives.