Not one of them shares blood. Every one of them stayed.
Insensitive to physical pain, generous to a fault, and unwilling to accept charity for himself, unless it comes from a mother. As a schoolboy he stitched his own cricket shoes by hand rather than ask for help, and stood silent through worse than that, without ever once looking away.
“Whatever happens to us happens because of our own karma. I have never once let my pain turn into suffering.”
A lawyer who hid herself for years, behind thick glasses and a dulled version of her own face, after childhood abuse taught her that hiding was safer than being seen. She survived far more than that since. Karna named her Chitrangada, after the warrior princess who tried to become beautiful for love and learned, the hard way, that borrowed beauty was never the answer.
“That was the day I decided I did not want you to be mine. I wanted to become yours instead.”
A general physician who spent her life checking on the people she loves out of habit, not doubt, and just as much of it on NGOs and strangers she has never met. The first to reach a bedside, every single time, before she has even said hello to anyone else in the room.
“In a family, differences of opinion are fine. But never let them become differences in the heart. A mother only wishes to see all her children living together with love.”
A corporate lawyer who closes more mergers in a year than most people attend job interviews in a lifetime, with an instinct for investment that has built half the family's fortune. It was his idea that the family live behind three separate doors, and his idea, too, that none of them would ever actually stay shut.
“If anyone hurts Chitra now, he will not be part of this family. And I mean it.”
One of America's most respected attorneys, and Chitra and Abhiraj's stepfather, though neither word has ever meant less than the real thing in this house. He chose to be their father long before the law required it of him, and never once let either of them feel like a "step" anything.
“Yes, it hurts. But what hurts more is that I was never there for her. Not once, when she needed me.”
Karna's oldest friend since school, and his partner in everything since. Older than both boys, and the one who made all the rules before anyone knew they needed any, long before anyone called him Boss. He built half of what Karna owns and refuses to take credit for it to his face, only behind his back, to everyone else.
“I feel like a complete failure, as their Boss. I could not protect Dhara. I could not protect Pragati.”
Boss's wife, calm where he is loud, and the one person who has never once walked into this house empty-handed. Called Madam for the simplest reason there is: the day he became Boss, she became Madam.
“We stood by her through all of it. If things had gone any further, her whole life would have looked completely different.”
The third of the trio, laughing before he has even reached the door, happy without ever needing a reason for it. Called the most handsome of the Pandavas at school, where Boss commanded and Nakul simply charmed, and it has worked for him his whole life since.
“This is our bro-code. She is part of our lives.”
Nakul's wife, and the one who notices things before anyone else in the room does, a quality that has saved all of them more than once. She rarely needs more than a look, or a hand on his knee, to say exactly what she means.
“We are family. All of us love him, and all of us make sure nobody ever hurts him.”
A surgeon known across the city for her work, and the one who always asks about the patient before she says hello to anyone. She and Karna share a history from long before she married Yatin, one the book finally gives her the closure to put down.
“Stay in the present, let the past go, and once you have committed to somebody, stay loyal. That is the reason I can give unconditional love to my children, and to everybody else. Whenever I say your name, I cry. Not because you gave me pain. But because without you I was in pain.”
A surgeon married to Dhara, quiet and steady, the kind of man who has never needed to raise his voice to be respected. His handshake is the same every single time: firm, brief, sincere.
“Never let the emotion take over you, or you will not be able to do your job.”
Boss's sister by blood, though Karna calls her his own sister and means it, and by his own account, he is her favourite brother. A physician like her mother, though her real passion has always been fashion and beauty, with a brand of her own now to prove it. She has never once walked into a quiet room and left it quiet.
“We are not letting them leave this room without all of it.”
The woman who has spent her whole life caring for children who are not her own, at the orphanage where Karna and Chitra first met. Behind that lifetime of quiet service sits a grief of her own, one the book takes its time with, and never once rushes.
“Never curse anybody. Nature has its own rules.”
Chitra's stepbrother, twenty-three, still in law school in the States and already leaning towards criminal law. He greets Karna the same way every time, one hand on his shoulder, one eye already checking whether there is something worth arguing about today.
“I cannot allow anyone to cause my mother pain either.”
Karna's own school tuition teacher, once, long before he became anyone's grandfather. When tragedy left his granddaughter Pragati without a family of her own, Sir took her in without a second thought, and without asking anyone's permission first.
“Beta, do you want to give me my guru dakshina. Please try your best to take care of her. Pragati.”
The daughter Karna fought a real legal battle to keep, when her own blood wanted the money and not the child. Where she is today is a question the book answers only once, and only at the very end.
Somewhere in this room, she has already been sitting the entire time. Her door remains closed.The woman at the centre of everything Karna is, the one he was never once allowed to call Mother. Not the family in this room, and not even the reader, has ever actually seen her face.
Every story in this room leads back to her. Not one page has ever shown her face. Her presence remains unseen.Play one, or all three.
Twelve fast questions, one of twelve wildly specific results. Find out exactly how you love.
Play NowTwelve questions. Find out whose love is closest to your own, Karna, Chitra, Boss, or Nirali.
Play NowTwelve quick questions about you. Find your real love language, and whether you show it securely, anxiously, or at arm's length.
Play NowWhen I say I love you, I am not saying it to fill a silence. I mean that I see you. I choose you. Even when things are difficult.Karna
When I say I love you, I am not saying it to fill a silence. I mean that I see you. I choose you. Even when things are difficult.Karna
That was the day I decided I did not want you to be mine. I wanted to become yours instead.Chitra
Never curse anybody. Nature has its own rules. Whatever we send out comes back to us, in the end.Savitamasi
Do good. But don't do it with expectations. Guard your peace.Karna, a rule his father taught him
You are my Chitrangada. Yesterday, today and forever.Karna
If somebody asks me one day what love actually is, I will simply say your name, and let them work it out for themselves.Karna
A family gathers in one home to finally tell each other the truth, sixteen days after one of them nearly didn't survive the night. Nobody in that room shares blood. It is a love story first, and a story about the family you build when the one you were born into fails you, right behind it.
No. It is a work of fiction. Almost nothing in the book is drawn from real events, though its emotional core, family, forgiveness and chosen belonging, comes from things the author has lived close to.
Yes. The book includes references to sexual assault, self-harm and childhood trauma. These themes are handled with care, but sensitive readers should know going in.
No, it is a novel. But karma, gratitude and Vipassana meditation run through the story as real, lived themes.
No. This is a standalone novel and Tejash Shah's first work of fiction.
Just over 125,000 words, a full-length novel.
eBook, paperback, and hardcover, available worldwide.
Not at this time. This story is written to stand complete on its own.