The Love Meter
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THE STORY
A family finally telling each other the truth.
Sixteen days after the night Chitra chose to stay, everyone who has ever loved her is walking through the door.
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THE BOOK
Not one person in that room shares their blood.
That is the only family Karna has ever trusted.
Before the day ends, two more people will arrive who complete everything. The daughter he fought for in court, chosen over relatives who only wanted her money. And the woman who found him alone in a jungle when he was five years old, and brought him home, the only mother he has never once been allowed to call Mother.
What follows is a whole family telling each other the truth, seated around a woman who fought her way back from the hardest night of her life, and a man everyone calls insensitive who has never once stopped feeling everything.
A story about the family you choose for yourself, one act at a time. About debts too big to measure, and the small, selfless acts that keep showing up anyway.
Whose love story is this.
Chitra's. Karna's. Or all of theirs.
You decide.
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
THREE DOORS
Three doors, one kitchen. Each of us could shut our own door at night. Nobody does.
The sea is outside my window. Thirtieth floor, sea facing, our new home. Boss and Nakul live in the flats beside mine, with their families, cut into one house so it works as one. I am holding a cup of tea I made an hour ago and forgot to drink. Behind me, my wife is sleeping on the patient bed, calm, her breathing steady.
By evening, this room will have heard almost everything: a friendship that built an empire out of stubbornness and loyalty; a woman who finally stopped hiding the way she looked; a courtroom fight for a child, and a family that won it; a caretaker's story of quiet strength; and a boy who found his way home after two months alone in the jungle, at five years old.
Two people are still to arrive. One has been in the room the entire time, and nobody knows it yet. The other has never once, in this entire story, been seen.
That was the day I decided I did not want you to be mine. I wanted to become yours instead.Chitra
WHY THIS BOOK EXISTS
This one was written to feel something.
THE GAMES
Three Ways to Meet Your Heart.
Play one, or all three.
THE CAST
Meet the Family.
The people who stayed. Not one of them shares blood. Every one of them stayed.
THE ONES WHO STAYED
Karna
Insensitive to physical pain, generous to a fault, and unwilling to accept charity for himself, unless it comes from a mother.
“Whatever happens to us happens because of our own karma. I have never once let my pain turn into suffering.”
Chitra
A lawyer who hid her looks for years after childhood abuse, and survived far more than that since. She stopped hiding herself.
“That was the day I decided I did not want you to be mine. I wanted to become yours instead.”
Boss
Karna's oldest friend and business partner. Commanding, protective, married to Madam.
“I feel like a complete failure, as their Boss. I could not protect Dhara. I could not protect Pragati.”
Nirali
Boss's sister, and Karna's closest confidante besides Pragati herself.
THE TWO MYSTERIES
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?
Pragati
The daughter Karna chose after a real legal fight. Where she is today is a question the book answers only once, at the very end.
HER DOOR REMAINS CLOSEDGod Mother
The woman at the centre of Karna's emotional life. The one person nobody, not the family, not even the reader, has ever actually seen.
HER PRESENCE REMAINS UNSEEN
LINES FROM THE BOOK
Words That Stayed.
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
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
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FAQ
Questions, Answered.
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.
KEEP GOING
There is more to this story.
Play the games
Three quick quizzes: the Love Meter, the Love Audit, and which character you are.
Play nowMeet the characters
Sixteen people around one bed. See who they are and what they carry.
Meet the familyPeek inside the chapters
The opening chapters, and a few doors still sealed.
See the chaptersWrite your story
Your own love story, in your own words. We read every one.
Write yoursRead reader stories
Love stories shared by readers, with their names and cities.
Read storiesBehind the book
Where the story began, and how it was written.
See how it beganReady to read it? Whose Love Story, a novel by Tejash Shah. eBook, paperback and hardcover.
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