Across The River

Seema Choudhry and Madhu Gupta, one Muslim, the other a Hindu, arethe best of friends. Both live in Old Delhi, only a few dense, narrow lanesapart, but in worlds that rarely meet. And yet, the worlds are very similarin the demands they make of women, especially young women like Seemaand Madhu-they should settle down soon after puberty, married to menof the same faith, caste and class, chosen by their elders. But in the earlyyears of the twenty-first century, change is creeping in. When the two girlsfind employment in a factory in Noida, across the Yamuna, their worldsexpand-a little at first, and then radically. Their lives will be transformed inunexpected ways by ambition and, in Seema's case, by the love of the other-the son of her bigoted Hindu employer.Written in effortless, clear-as-glass prose, Across the River is a hugely engagingexploration of the tension between tradition and modernity, and an equallysensitive examination of both the rigidity and the fragility of religiousprejudice.