My thesis is a novel-in-stories that revolves around the lives of Rupa Rajput and Harban Kaur.
They meet in New York. She is a twenty-year-old woman who’s graduating from NYU’s music program and he is a fifty-two-year-old man working full time as a crime news writer for the fictional Manhattan Scroll. They spend a night together walking through New York City, starting at the strip club Luna’s, going through Washington Square Park, until they reach Rupa’s NYU apartment where they must say good night.
Eventually, they find themselves together again, this time, in Seattle, only to discover that Harban is none other than Kaur-ji, an old friend of Rupa’s uncle and aunt. Now, faced with choices they never thought they’d have the choice to make, they must ask themselves what’s most important: personal happiness, societal acceptance, or the respect of their loved ones.
In an ideal world, they wouldn’t have to choose. But this isn’t an ideal world. It’s our world, just a fictional version of it, a couple years into an imagined future.
