She is 39. He is 37. Keteki and Ved, the protagonists of Anjali Joseph’s new book, Keeping in Touch, meet at Heathrow Airport. She is returning home to Assam and he is on his way to Bombay. Such a beginning is liable to give an impression of entering the far-too-familiar landscape of a boy-meets-girl-at-airport-they-fall-in-love kind of story, but the terrain is actually less trodden.
Their encounter at the transit zone leads to the unfolding of the uneven yet adventurous journeys of two individuals caught in something of a conundrum. She is engaged in freelance work related to the arts, and travels the world curating exhibitions. He is an investor of sorts whose latest business deals with the revival of a light bulb company in India, once a British-owned firm. The new bulb, called “Everlasting Lucifer” is endowed with an “intelligent” filament that sets it apart from a regular CFL and LED. And, no, Lucifer is not what you might imagine.
Keeping in Touch is an ode to ordinary lives of people with extraordinary experiences and legitimate expectations. It is fast-paced with cameo appearances zipping in and out of Keteki and Ved’s lives. The reader almost runs the risk of going breathless keeping track of the entries and the exits in the story. It sometimes gets unnerving to keep up with the sub-plots and the terribly tiny tales of people who feature in between Keteki and Ved’s short-spanned but multiple romantic escapades.
Read the complete review at: Anjali Joseph’s ‘Keeping in Touch’ is an ode to (extra)ordinary lives in the guise of a romance (scroll.in)
