‘The Other Sister’: An unconventional, brave novel about the unbearable emptiness of virtual living

“Why is it such a chore to be happy?’’ Maya asks herself in The Other Sister.

This is very much the question that sums up Amrita Tripathi’s ambitious new novel. Set in the post-pandemic world disconnected and in disarray, it is unconventional and brave.

The Other Sister opens with Maya, Tripathi’s central character, going offline after posting a cryptic “Life is short, before you know it, time’s up”. The post gets twenty-two likes. Four days later she disappears. Maya moves to her Auntie Chini’s house for refuge. It is a “performance” of her self-isolation, that social media insists on. She ghosts her friends, who see her as “too intense”. “None of them know that she is already on a timeout, not until she announced it, but just goes to show how much attention they were paying in real life,” writes Tripathi. And none of her self-professed BFFs get it. This beginning sets the tone for the book.

Stories that define us

There are many threads being tugged – Maya and her protector Akira, which forms the fulcrum of the book. Her “friends” and friendship; Gautam her bhaiyya; Karthik, a potential partner she meets at the ashram; god men; Usha, her mother who abandoned her and her “father” Lakshman who...

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