When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When Dimple Met Rishi is a ferociously charming book. It’s also a book I heard about on social media and so, I suspect, might be my reposte to those critics who think that book-talk on social media is the death of everything they hold dear. People talk about books, freely, fascinatingly, and that talk is driven by emotion. In the case of When Dimple Met Rishi, it was a talk that sang of love, all the while accompanied by that cover, that rich, beautiful cover.
And I’m always a little nervous because I don’t want to be the person who, for want of a better phrase, shouts against such a loving discourse. Like what you wish, talk about what you wish, and if you’ve read the book, if you’ve participated in the world, if you’ve quizzed your reaction as much as the thing that you’re reacting too, then fine. Your perspective is warranted, welcome. Necessary, really.
When Dimple Met Rishi is delightful. It is a book that more than easily stands up to the discourse around it, and more so, drives it through having such a genuinely beautiful, eloquent and passionate narrative that slides out from its pages, easy as air. This is a good book. It’s a very charming, distinct, book, which tells a very beautiful, very empathetic love story.
Dimple Shah and Rishi Patel. They’re both attending the same summer school programme for coders, and they are part of a “suggested arrangement”. That is to say, they’re part of an arranged marriage. Rishi, a wild romantic, is on board. Dimple, slightly less so…
When Dimple Met Rishi tracks the development of this relationship; unabashedly so, and it’s just lovely. There’s a slightly fumbly last few pages as Menon brings all of the threads together but really, the threads are so gorgeous and you’re so invested at that point that it’s easy to let that slide and just will them all to get together.
The other thing to note about Menon’s style is that it’s very quietly frank. She moves from discussing a group of ‘Aberzombies’ to theistic semantics, and does so in a tone that is very well handled, sympathetic, and also intensely welcome. In a way, I can’t recommend When Dimple Met Rishi enough really, as it’s such a quietly multi-faceted piece, full of an intense, vibrant heart and what’s not to love about that? It is a good book.
Daisy May Johnson 