While her husband, a physiotherapist, spends most of the year in Dubai, Mrs Sharma works as a receptionist in a Gurgaon doctor’s clinic. She’s 37, and lives with her 16-year-old son and in-laws in a small rented flat in Delhi.

If she wanted, she could complain about her life, which comes with more burden than benefits, but she’s not one to “timewaste” whining about what she doesn’t have. “When my in-laws’ medical bills grow into lakhs of rupees, when my son has to do this further studies, who will save us? Will love and romance save us?” That's what she tells people who rub her the wrong way. And then she meets Vineet, a handsome young man, at a Metro station.

The rest of the novel revolves around the daily contradictions that Mrs Sharma faces once her desires begin to get the better of her. In a way, she represents the paradox of trying to live life to the fullest along with negotiating the situation at hand.

“How fragile are the edifices of the lives of the Indian middle class women, built with some dedication, self-sacrifice, ceaseless devotion to elders, control over urges and desires, dutiful obedience to traditional roles and unflinching attention to securing a glittering future for their progeny, but liable to tumble down and shatter irredeemably with one indiscretion – and its consequences,’ stated a review in The Times of India, exposing the novel’s core.

She agrees to meet Vineet for coffee convincing, herself that she’s only interested in a friendship, the type shared between two women. She befriends him but carefully hides her marital status from him. We wonder which way she’ll swing ultimately, whether she’ll ever emerge from the well of self-delusion and self-denial. But we also sympathise with her because almost all her decisions and indecisions, her double-mindedness, are rooted in the love and loyalty she has towards her family. She desperately tries to float in two worlds and find a balance, but soon finds herself in an impossible situation.

Published in 2015.