Across the River by Bhaichand Patel (Speaking Tiger, 2024) is a compelling exploration of friendship, love, and the fraught intersections of tradition and modernity in contemporary India. Set in the dense, labyrinthine alleys of Old Delhi, the novel follows the lives of Seema Choudhry and Madhu Gupta—two young women from different religious backgrounds whose friendship transcends the rigid divides imposed by their families and communities. Through their journey, Patel crafts an evocative narrative that examines the power structures shaping women's lives, the weight of societal expectations, and the slow but inevitable tide of change.
The World of Old Delhi: Boundaries Seen and Unseen
The setting of Across the River is integral to its thematic depth. Patel vividly conjures the vibrant, chaotic world of Old Delhi, where communities exist in close physical proximity but remain socially distant. Seema, a Muslim girl, and Madhu, a Hindu, grow up in neighborhoods that are mere lanes apart, yet their families belong to worlds that rarely intersect. Their friendship, then, becomes an act of quiet defiance against an unwritten but deeply ingrained segregation.
This divide is not just religious but also gendered. Both Seema and Madhu, despite their different backgrounds, face strikingly similar expectations: early marriage to men of the same faith, caste, and class, chosen by their families. Patel’s nuanced storytelling underscores the oppressive uniformity of patriarchal structures, revealing how women across communities are bound by the same invisible chains, regardless of religious identity.
A Journey Across the River: The Promise and Perils of Change
When the girls find work in a factory in Noida, across the Yamuna River, their world expands. The river serves as both a literal and metaphorical threshold—one that separates their insular upbringing from the possibilities of the larger world. In Noida, Seema and Madhu encounter new freedoms, financial independence, and a broader social landscape that offers them glimpses of a different future.
Yet, this newfound agency does not come without resistance. The novel keenly observes how change though inevitable, is often met with hostility from those invested in maintaining the status quo. Madhu and Seema's journey is punctuated by moments of quiet rebellion—questioning arranged marriages, asserting professional ambitions, and, in Seema’s case, falling in love with the son of her conservative Hindu employer. These acts of defiance bring them into conflict with their families, their communities, and, ultimately, the entrenched prejudices that shape their world.
Love, Prejudice, and the Fragility of Boundaries
Seema’s love story is at the heart of Across the River, serving as a deeply personal lens through which Patel examines the complexities of religious intolerance in India. Her romance with a Hindu boy is not just frowned upon but viewed as an outright transgression, a defiance of rigid social codes that dictate whom one can and cannot love. Patel portrays with remarkable sensitivity how love, which should be a deeply personal choice, becomes a battleground for societal anxieties about identity, purity, and honor.
For Seema, love is an act of self-discovery, an assertion of agency in a world that seeks to control her choices. However, for her family and community, it is seen as an existential threat—one that challenges deeply ingrained ideas of religious exclusivity and communal loyalty. Patel masterfully captures the way such relationships are met with fear and resistance, not only from parents and elders but also from peers who have internalized the same restrictive ideologies. Through Seema’s experiences, Across the River unpacks the layers of surveillance, coercion, and emotional blackmail that are often deployed to ensure conformity, highlighting the painful cost of choosing love over societal expectations.
What makes Patel’s depiction particularly striking is that he does not resort to one-dimensional portrayals of intolerance. Instead, he paints a nuanced picture of how these prejudices are reinforced through generations—passed down not always out of hatred, but often out of fear, a misguided sense of protection, and an unwillingness to confront change. The novel also subtly critiques the way patriarchal structures intersect with religious boundaries; while men may have more leeway to transgress social norms, women like Seema bear the brunt of the consequences. Her love story is not merely about religious differences—it is about power, control, and the difficulty of carving out an independent identity in a world that seeks to define her by the group she belongs to.
By placing Seema’s personal journey against the broader backdrop of religious intolerance, Across the River forces the reader to confront difficult questions: How do personal relationships survive in an environment where love is politicized? Can individual choices ever truly be separate from communal pressures? And, most importantly, is there a way forward—a future where love is not dictated by inherited divisions, but by personal will? Through Seema’s struggles and resilience, Patel leaves us with no easy answers, but with a powerful meditation on the forces that shape human connection in a divided world.
A Narrative of Clarity and Grace
One of Across the River’s greatest strengths is Patel’s prose—effortless, clear, and unpretentious. There is an elegance in the way he crafts his narrative, where every sentence serves a purpose, stripping away excess to reveal the raw, emotional core of the story. His language does not rely on flourish or ornamentation; instead, it carries a quiet power, allowing the weight of his characters' struggles to emerge naturally. It is a style that mirrors the very world he portrays—one where deep emotions and complex conflicts unfold in everyday moments, often without grand declarations or dramatic flourishes.
The simplicity of Patel’s language belies the depth of his storytelling. Through his restrained prose, he achieves a remarkable balance between intimacy and expansiveness, ensuring that the novel remains deeply personal while also resonating with larger, universal themes. Whether he is describing the bustling, narrow lanes of Old Delhi, the restrictive domestic spaces where tradition reigns, or the uncertain freedom of new beginnings across the Yamuna, Patel’s writing evokes a sense of place with remarkable clarity. His words do not impose meaning but allow the reader to step into the characters’ lives, to feel their hesitations, longings, and fears without the filter of heavy-handed narration.
Moreover, Patel’s prose lends itself beautifully to the novel’s emotional undertones. His storytelling is never melodramatic, yet it carries an undercurrent of quiet devastation, making the heartbreak and tension in the novel all the more poignant. The emotional depth of Across the River comes not from overt displays of sentimentality, but from the small, everyday moments in which the characters experience love, loss, and defiance—moments that feel both deeply personal and universally recognizable.
In a story that examines the tensions between tradition and modernity, between individual agency and communal expectations, Patel’s writing ensures that these themes are never overexplained or forcefully imposed. Instead, they emerge organically, woven seamlessly into the lives of his characters. His prose, like the river in the novel’s title, flows smoothly, carrying the reader along a journey that is both deeply moving and profoundly thought-provoking.
Patel’s storytelling is also refreshingly balanced. While he critiques the regressive aspects of tradition, he does not reduce cultural heritage to mere oppression. There is a certain reverence in his depiction of Old Delhi’s vibrant life—the bustling streets, the aromas of street food, and the rhythms of community rituals. This duality—the beauty and the burden of tradition—is what makes the novel so compelling.
Across the River is more than just a story of two young women; it is a broader meditation on a country caught between tradition and change, between inherited divisions and emerging solidarities. Through Seema and Madhu’s intertwined fates, Patel forces the reader to confront difficult questions: Can personal aspirations ever truly triumph over communal dictates? How do friendships and love survive in an environment of suspicion and hostility? And ultimately, is it possible to build bridges across the rivers—both literal and metaphorical—that divide us?
With its poignant storytelling, richly textured setting, and unflinching look at the tensions of modern India, Across the River is a novel that lingers long after the final page. It is a powerful reminder that while history and society may draw lines between us, the human spirit—yearning for connection, love, and freedom—has the power to transcend them.
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About the Book
Seema Choudhry and Madhu Gupta, one Muslim, the other a Hindu, are the best of friends. Both live in Old Delhi, only a few dense, narrow lanes apart, but in worlds that rarely meet. And yet, the worlds are very similar in the demands they make of women, especially young women like Seema and Madhu—they should settle down soon after puberty, married to men of the same faith, caste and class, chosen by their elders. But in the early years of the twenty-first century, change is creeping in. When the two girls find employment in a factory in Noida, across the Yamuna, their worlds expand—a little at first, and then radically. Their lives will be transformed in unexpected ways by ambition and, in Seema’s case, by the love of the other— the son of her bigoted Hindu employer.
Written in effortless, clear-as-glass prose, Across the River is a hugely engaging exploration of the tension between tradition and modernity, and an equally sensitive examination of both the rigidity and the fragility of religious prejudice.
About the Author
Bhaichand Patel is a Fiji national who lives in New Delhi—where he settled down after long stints in Bombay, London, New York, Cairo, and Manila. His books include Chasing the Good Life, an anthology of essays on being single in India; Happy Hours, a book on cocktails; Bollywood’s Top Twenty: The Superstars of Indian Cinema; the novel Mothers, Lovers & Other Strangers; and the memoir I Am a Stranger Here Myself.