Thirty Days A Year

Lucknow, 1991.

At a small training institute, Purnima and Arnav fall into the habit of paying attention to one another. She notices what needs to be done. He remembers what she says. Neither gives the habit a name.

When Arnav leaves for Muscat, his life in India begins to be measured in thirty-day visits. Purnima remains in Lucknow, building a chikankari business while caring for the parents whose lives have slowly narrowed around the house.

Between them, letters carry the ordinary news of work, family and passing years—until, without a quarrel or an explanation, they stop.

Nearly twenty-one years after they last saw one another, an old institute gathering places them in the same room again. Their lives are separate, established and full of responsibilities. What remains between them is not a youth waiting to be recovered, but something quieter: a knowledge of each other that time has altered without entirely taking away.

Spanning more than thirty-five years, Thirty Days A Year is a deeply restrained novel about work, distance, ageing, and the forms love takes when it has never been promised a future.

It is not a story about recovering lost time.

It is about what remains.