Delhi-based writer Simran Dhir’s gripping and astutely observed debut Best Intentions (HarperCollins India) is a ‘novel of manners’ that dissects the institution of marriage and the costs of choices women make through the story of Gayatri Mehra, the lawyer who edits a history journal. Set in Delhi, its cast of characters — rounded and deeply layered — includes a banker desperate to arrive as a member of the city’s elite and an unscrupulous godman, who heads a right-wing organisation that forces Gayatri’s journal to fall in line by employing pressure tactics. As their worlds collide, ruptures are inevitable. But, in the end, as the strong-willed Gayatri, who had resisted her parents’ efforts to get her married, finds love, she discovers its redemptive power.  Excerpts from an interview:   

I conceived the novel as a story that would cover the protagonists’ lives in whole — their family, professional lives, past ghosts, as well as the political climate they are living in. No person lives in a vacuum, and given that the characters in the book include lawyers and historians, the political aspect of the novel took on its own life.

I did not plot the novel out in detail before starting to write it; I mostly depended on the story to flow in my head as I was writing to supply me the political and personal plot points.

I am not a litigating lawyer like the Grewals; the area of law I operate in professionally is very different from what Akshay and Mr. Grewal do in the book. So while it did help that I have a sense of lawyers and how the legal system works through friends and colleagues, it was not exactly drawn from my own experiences! 

I think family is very important in the Indian context — whether it is about career choices or choices of partners. Both Gayatri and Akshay are shaped by their families to a large extent. Gayatri was the first character I conceived as I started writing: I imagined her as someone straightforward, determined to pursue what she loves to do while trying to grapple with the changing social and political climate in India. Akshay and Vikram developed naturally in response to Gayatri; they each appealed to different sides of her. Akshay, for his part, had a pretty large skeleton in his closet, which also shaped his character and arc in the book.  

I think upper-middle-class circles can sometimes be unfairly dismissed as a privileged or whiny set that may not make for interesting or real characterisation; I think, on the contrary, that these classes provide rich material for exploring characters and mindsets.

I also think that given I come from Delhi, some of the characters and mannerisms of such people were easier for me to write.

I have not consciously modelled Gayatri on any particular person I know. She may have character traits of some of my favourite heroines from the books that I love: Lata from A Suitable Boy, Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, and Dorothea from Middlemarch.

In addition to the qualities you’ve mentioned, I hope that she also comes across as someone with an open mind, who can learn and change despite her strong opinions.

I started writing this book in 2014, when there was a definite shift in the politics and debates in the public sphere in India. Over the five years that I took to complete the book, my own thought process underwent changes that I think are in some way reflected in the book.

In particular, I was very interested in the subjectivities involved in the writing of history and the politics that underlie such narratives. I was also reading a fair bit of history at this point, and following the debates on the re-claiming of history from the left-liberal school that had played a large part in shaping the way, history is taught in the post-independence years. In fact, even though the novel is a romance, the inciting incident of the whole story is Gayatri’s troubles at the history journal where she works.  

The situations of the protagonists as a historian, lawyer and business also lent themselves neatly to many of the political issues that arise.

I think a lot of people in my generation have toyed with the idea of arranged marriage at a certain age if they are not already in a relationship. It is an outdated concept and many times throws together completely mismatched people. Now, of course, with a large number of dating apps around, I think it has lost even more relevance in urban areas.

I love the fact that Delhi is a really old city; that there are cities within cities here, and at any turn, you could come up against beautiful old monuments that now form part of the city in many cases. I love the fact that Delhi has old, large open markets and not just malls, that the seasons change with such certainty, and the trees and flowers signal these changes beautifully. I also love the food in Delhi, and particularly love Old Delhi that in terms of charm, authenticity and people, has no equal anywhere.

I think Gayatri’s own story shows the limits of idealism that a lot of us aspire to; that even this idealism could be rooted in fixed ideas that one does not question. Pragmatism is important in today’s Delhi to balance out idealism.

If I could, I would lower the pollution levels.

I love to read, and that is the reason I wanted to write. My favourite writers are Vikram Seth, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Naguib Mahfouz. 

I am working on another novel, also set in Delhi, with a different cast of characters.