Intermission
He wondered why he, forty-four-year-old successful entrepreneur, faithful husband and competent father of a sixteen-year-old boy, a man with the stolidity of half his life behind him and the certainty of what lay ahead, should wait every morning for a glimpse of this girl, like a teenager in the first throes of an infatuation.From the author of the best-selling Keep the Change comes a new novel about Delhi’s suburbia. Set in Gurgaon, the dazzling face of modernity in India, Intermission takes us into the lives of Varun and Gayatri Sarin, not-so-happily-married corporate couple who are trying to come to terms with life in India after several years of an ordered existence in the First World.
Varun is focussed on running his own business; Gayatri yearns for her friends and her life in the US.Their son Anirudh is grappling with his first adolescent crush. From intrusive in-laws and absconding domestic staff to potholes and pigs on the road, there is a new challenge to be confronted every day.Then Varun meets Sweety, young mother-of-twins, who is living her dream life in a nuclear family, and everything changes. For him, for Sweety, and insidiously, for everyone around them. A beautifully told story of illicit love and divided loyalties, Intermission explores lives within a gated community with just the right touch of irony and compassion.
Praise for the book
“While Intermission can be read as a fast-paced page-turner, with lots of masala, it is not just a regular Mills & Boons about a passionate extra-marital affair. In the midst of the tumultuous love story of Varun and Sweety, the author also rakes open a plethora of issues ranging from the relationship between masters and servants, societal pressures and troubles of the urban family.” – Hindustan Times
“Nirupama’s strength has been the very normal, very real characters she fleshes out, striking a chord with her readers. Intermission is a tale of our times.” – The Hindu
“I especially liked the descriptions of life in the luxury condos of Gurgoan – quite relate-able to life in most new parts of urban cities, where sudden development sees luxury and poverty living side by side. Gayatri was the character who appealed the most to me. She was real, she was not perfect, but she was doing the best she could do. I liked the ending as well. It was a realistic ending.A quick read, a page turner, something which will definitely not bore you.” – Words and Dreamz
“Intermission shows the authors growth as this is a much more mature love story. Set in Gurgaon , a modern millennium city , this tale has many relatable characters and situations.It explores laid back married love and where it can lead.I enjoyed both these reads immensely.” – The Book Reporter
“Nirupama Subramanian raises all the points that sociologists agonize over, with a keen eye and a quiet sense of humor – ‘Intermission’ is the story of forty-four year old Varun Sarin, a suave entrepreneur, a newly-returned Indian, resident of the seventh floor of Trafalgar Towers (incidentally, I chuckled at how Subramanian has chosen the name of the colony with spot-on irony that grand Gurgaon namkaran provides). Sarin’s wife Gayatri, in my opinion one of the most finely-drawn characters in the book, was wrenched from her California home when he decides to come back to address the two common NRI tropes: guilt and giving-back, and is struggling with life in Gurgaon.Subramanian’s prose is gracious and her gaze, at once compassionate and dissecting, tells a difficult story without sacrificing readability.” – Devapriya Roy- ibnlivecom
“Intermission is a mature move by the author.” – Deccan Chronicle
