‘The Other Sister’: An unconventional, brave novel about the unbearable emptiness of virtual living
Author Amrita Tripathi explores the complexity of trauma and coping, and the stories that we tell ourselves and that are told about us.
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“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...
