Quarterlife by Devika Rege

The novel of our times...

It is almost always ideal to write about a book when one has just finished reading it. When it is a book one has liked and when that has been after a long hiatus, the feeling is akin to an orgasmic glow.

And yes, Quarterlife is one of the books I finished reading just before 2023 ended. I am not proud of the fact that November and December were the two months when I finished three out of the five books I read in 2023. While a month has passed since I finished reading it, I will still attempt to write about it – pardon me if it is too short. I process books on how they made me feel and what I write about them is never an intellectual examination of the characters or the theme of the book.

I saw Devika Rege speak at the Bangalore Literature Festival – she was on a panel on Facts in Fiction: Novels Navigating New India with Anjum Hasan and Madhavi Mahadevan. Hearing her speak piqued my interest in her debut novel.

Calling Quarterlife a novel of our times is not an understatement – Devika Rege tells a story through the narratives of six individuals bonded together through family, friendship, work or a common social structure and how they process the political change of guard in 2014. Naren is the quintessential Ivy educated wall street consultant who returns to India – buoyed by India’s growth story and the alienation he felt in American society. His brother Rohit goes to a journey in exploration of his roots and to capture the current political wave on lens. His friend and business partner Gyaan is caught between life economics and political ideologies coming in the way of his relationship with Ifra, his Muslim upper-class girlfriend. Their apolitical parsi friend Cyrus battles with the struggles of being gay even after being part of the cultural elite. And then there are the two outsiders in this merry circle – Amanda an American who comes to shoots photos for Ifra’s NGO and Omkar, a Hindu nationalist from Wai.

The plot moves with alternate narratives of these characters and how they navigate their life and interpersonal relationships in the wake of the political changes. The tension they feel is obvious and the events with which the story ends is representative of a liquid boiling out of a cauldron hanging over a slow fire.

So what did I feel about Quarterlife? I felt that I was each of these characters – they almost seem like the reader’s (or the writer’s) different alter egos at different points of time. Real life coffee table discussions with friends and family in social settings seem the same as the conversations between the characters and their understanding of what is happening in the country.

The book has managed to put into words very well how the cosmopolitan society has reacted to and processed the changes in 2014 –  the portrayal is realistic and the perspectives consistent with their backgrounds and consecutive life journeys during the length of the time period of the book. While the ending can be abrupt, the writer’s perspective at the last seems a fitting end. It is personal and connects with the reader – in fact they mollified my disappointment with the ending.

In retrospect, it was a fitting end to 2023 for me. Almost seemed like the end of my own ‘quarterlife’ (metaphorically, and not by the length of the years that I have lived) and the beginning of a change.