Losing an intense plot in ‘Across the River’

Not a very prolific writer, Bhaichand Patel’s books on high living and filmstars have been racy reads. ‘Across the River’ is his second attempt at fiction after over a decade. Patel showed gumption in picking a theme of a politically incorrect romance between a Muslim girl living a precarious existence in Old Delhi and a Gujarati Hindu factory magnate on the other side of the river in East Delhi.

Patel packs in quite a few characters in his slim novel for it to race forward smoothly with a lot of improbable twists. Rejected several times without a hijab, the female protagonist Seema Chowdhry was mistaken for a Hindu when she went for a job interview without one. The take-off point is when Seema’s true identity as a Muslim is revealed well after a romance had developed with the businessman’s son.

The plot had the potential for intensity, but Patel takes the easy way out of nearly every confrontational situation. The bitterly opposed industrial magnate conveniently dies when the relationship between Mohan and Seema is on a razor’s edge. The Gujarati girl whom the parents wanted Mohan to marry, promptly confesses that she is in love with someone else. Before Seema’s identity as a Muslim is revealed, she impresses Mohan’s parents by thrashing him in a tennis match. It is only then, three-fourths into the novel, that we learn that Seema is an accomplished sportsperson too.

Her Islamist uncle, who flew into a rage on learning of Seema’s affair, incongruously melts and becomes conciliatory after travelling all the way from Old Delhi to Noida to corner Mohan’s father. For far too many times, Patel has squared the circle in his overeagerness to take the plot forward.

Where he shines is in his portrayal of the Gujarati family’s rise to power and pelf through the decades, as well as the sleaziness that accompanies business and politics, especially during the Licence-Permit Raj. But that is not unusual. It is a tale familiar to Delhiites and best exemplifies that of Lala Shri Ram from the same lanes of Old Delhi.

Patel, despite his stays in Delhi, has obviously restricted himself to its tony parts, where he is known for throwing high-voltage parties. Otherwise, he would have known that there are no queues for buses in Delhi, especially when it rains. Or that Old Delhi is much more than a window seen through a cobweb of wires. The neat ending where all the youngsters populating the novel find their soulmates is too improbable for the current times.