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Tomorrow’s Promise A maiden novel by Bubbles Sabharwal, Tomorrow’s Promise stands conspicuous in the realms of this genre. Its charm lies in starting with a mundane life and finally taking us to a higher level. It makes an interesting reading of relationships—sex, adultery, divorce et al in the so-called glamorous society of the high-ups in metropolitan cities.
Frustrated and lonely, Shirin takes a fancy for Udyan whose wife is sick with cancer. With the ‘shark’ hidden in his personality, Udyan falls madly in love with her. Fire in her eyes lures him, but Kabir overlooks it for promotions and social status. The theme is handled well except for the jarring note of the eerie prophecies about Shirin being a ‘mangalik’. With Kabir lying sick with a stroke and Ankita in the US, Shirin comes face to face with stark reality. It goes to her credit that she single-handedly picks up the threads of her devastated life and proves herself to be a woman of sheer grit and inner strength. In fact, it is a tribute to the modern gutsy woman who can handle life with all its complexities on her own. Shirin’s character shows strong determination and a mature outlook with the passage of time. This is evident in Shirin’s description of her father’s death to Ankita, "Lord Yama whispered to me, ‘Where we go the colours never fade. It is unlike your world where spring is replaced by summer’." The story of the eagle and the pigeon that she narrates to her grandson Nikhil shows the upward journey of the human soul. Years flow on silent wings bequeathing her serenity and depth of mind which the reader may not even have associated with her, as she drifted in her hey day. For her, Nikhil "held tomorrow’s promise in his tiny hands". She finds the meaning of life that she had been searching all along. The writer has enhanced the appeal of her novel by using the element of contrast, for example, her father died in spring, yet the grief inside was in direct contrast to the riot of colours outside. She gets poetic with language wherever emotions are involved. The meetings between Shirin and Udyan in Japan and before the latter leaves for the US are presented with a flourish and richness of language that carry the readers along and equally magical is the picturesque description of the coral reefs and crystal waters of Mauritius. On the whole, the novel makes an exceptionally interesting reading. Besides adorning one’s bookshelf, it can certainly generate positive outlook and strong will power to brave life.
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The
novel portrays the family and social life of Shirin, her husband Kabir
Bhatia and their daughter Ankita. Though Shirin is averse to too much
partying, Kabir employs it as a tool to climb the social ladder and get
promotions in his company. His transfer from Bombay to Delhi brings
forth a new dimension to the story. Shirin understands well that she
wants more in life than looking after the needs of the family. The lines
"I ached for my life to change`85 left out in the cold, I was
merely a spectator to (Kabir’s) success, swimming furiously against
the dark eddies of frustration and loneliness that tried to pull me
under" sum up her state of mind right at the beginning of the
novel. It is in search of what she wants that she moves on in the
journey of life.