A pleasant buzz | Review of The Wrong Way Home by Shunali Khullar Shroff

Exactly a year after her divorce, Nayantara, the protagonist of Shunali Khullar Shroff’s new novel, The Wrong Way Home, is en route to the income tax department when she finds out that her ex-husband has married a much younger social media influencer. “The dust hasn’t yet settled on the grave of our marriage, and he’s found himself another wife?” she asks, visibly outraged. “Do people have no morals?” 

Turning to social media for answers leaves her even more miserable as she encounters her “ex aboard a yacht grinning at his new bride, with the unbroken Pacific blue of honeymoon brochures in the back”. The somewhat shallow, decidedly catty, and yet refreshingly real Nayantara clarifies that while she is “not jealous or anything”, she isn’t exactly thrilled with the news. A couple of meltdowns later, she makes a promise to herself. “He can have his perfect little wedding. I’m going to build an empire for myself.”

Except, of course, life never really works out like that. Nayantara continues to fumble through her days, making more than her fair share of mistakes and nurturing intensely complicated relationships with nearly everybody who forms a part of her world, including her narcissistic ex Jay, idealistic mother Kalpana, token gay bestie Rishi, a longstanding female frenemy Anjali, and some painful clients at the flailing PR agency she runs. 

From Mumbai to Landour

We also get a peek into her star-crossed love life, which largely falls into the all-too-familiar trope of being torn between the charming, flighty bad boy and a stolid, mummy-approved good one, a la Bridget Jones and its obvious inspiration, Pride and Prejudice. 

The Wrong Way Home, like most novels in the fun, commercial fiction for women genre (often going by the sexist term ‘chick lit’), is predictable enough, following familiar themes of modern love, career negotiations, family tussles and self-discovery. 

While its breezy tone, relatable humour and snappy dialogue make it an easy read, it isn’t a trivial novel. It tackles ideas that add unexpected depth to the narrative without weighing it down, such as the double standards with ageing, the pitfalls of personality curation, the complexity of female friendships, the social stigma of being a single woman in India, and the dynamics of toxic relationship patterns.

Admittedly, some peripheral characters feel caricatured at times, particularly Nayantara’s love interest, the bad boy Arjun. But that is easy to forgive, given how clever and engaging the narrative is, especially in its satirical take on certain echelons of society. Also, Shroff writes places beautifully, bringing to life both the grit and glamour of Mumbai and the slow beauty of the hills in Landour. 

Where the book truly shines, however, is in how skilfully Nayantara’s character — infuriating, complicated, inexplicable, often unpleasant, but definitely an original — is crafted. As writer and author Namita Devidayal writes in the book’s blurb, “It is not easy to like a shallow, manipulative social climber and yet… the funny, smart protagonist Nayantara is disarmingly real,” she says, comparing the novel to a shot of limoncello, “light, delectable and leaving you pleasantly buzzed”. I can’t disagree.

preeti.zachariah@thehindu.co.in

The Wrong Way Home

Shunali Khullar Shroff

Bloomsbury India

₹499