Rupleena Bose’s debut novel ‘Summer of Then’: When the grass is brown on your side

To me, summers have always been a season of terrific melancholy. The harsh afternoon sun injects everything with its cruelness – a lull descends on the streets, dispirit clouds people’s eyes, and the stillness of the summer air threatens to engulf every creature. We become used to this oppressive heat, and, as the mercury climbs higher and higher, we retreat further into our shells – accepting the suffering as our collective fate.

Rupleena Bose’s debut novel The Summer of Then spans over a decade of such painful summers and relief-bringing winters. It starts in Kolkata in the “spring” of 2010 – weather characterised by a fortnight of pleasantness and therefore, a happy state of mind. The unnamed narrator finds herself between Nikhil and Zap, two men with whom she will have exhilarating and confusing relationships for the next ten years.

She’s drawn to Zap’s carefree confidence and his unconditional love for his work. A filmmaker, he is never perturbed by others’ opinions. Nikhil, also a filmmaker, is absolutely sure of himself too. His reigning emotion is anger, and he is quick to establish authority in any room he finds himself in. The narrator, an ad hoc professor at a Delhi college and an occasional proofreader, wants...

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