Seema Choudhry and Madhu Gupta, one Muslim, the other a Hindu, are the best of friends. Both live in Old Delhi, only a few dense, narrow lanes apart, but in worlds that rarely meet. And yet, the worlds are very similar in the demands they make of women, especially young women like Seema and Madhu—they should settle down soon after puberty, married to men of the same faith, caste and class, chosen by their elders. But in the early years of the twenty-first century, change is creeping in. When the two girls find employment in a factory in Noida, across the Yamuna, their worlds expand—a little at first, and then radically. Their lives will be transformed in unexpected 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 engaging exploration of the tension between tradition and modernity, and an equally sensitive examination of both the rigidity and the fragility of religious prejudice.

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