India and its youth jointly confront the challenge of self-definition in Devika Rege’s excellent debut novel, Quarterlife. Set in the months after the 2014 landslide victory of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s rightwing Bharatiya Janata party (here fictionalised as the Bharat party), the book tunes into the hopes and anxieties of a knot of spirited young individuals, as they navigate caste, class, selfhood, ambition and pride amid the rising tide of Hindu nationalism.
Among them is 31-year-old management consultant Naren Agashe who is back home in Mumbai, after a decade spent in the US. Lured by the economic and policy reforms promised by the new government, he sees himself as part of the “golden generation” that will lead the country into a future of prosperity. Accompanying Naren is 27-year-old New Englander Amanda Harris Martin, a university friend who has accepted a teaching fellowship in a Muslim-dominated Mumbai slum in a bid to find her true purpose. Naren’s younger brother, Rohit, an indie film-maker with whom Amanda gets involved, is on his own private journey of self-discovery, after his once-solid conviction that he and his friends “were the voice of a generation” has fissured. Rohit’s friends “are all outraged that a man with blood on his hands has the nation’s mandate” while Rohit, much like his brother, is optimistic about the future (“Parties evolve,” they both believe).
