Gone are the days when lovers used to pen long and mushy letters to each other, confessing how much they loved and missed their partners. Now is the age of Tinder – of swiping left and right and choosing your dates on the basis of pictures. This is the era of quick-fix love, where your partner is just a text or a video call away if you ever miss them. What was considered writing love ballads for your partner in the bygone days is now replaced by sexting. Flirting and thinking about impressive pickup lines has given way to “Hey u up?”. Intimacy is now viewed through the lens of a Snapchat filter. And this is what has led the romantics to question if real love can bubble up in hyper online romances?
Our desi novelists think so. From Nikita Singh’s to Sudeep Nagarkar’s fiction, here we bring you 5 novels which will convince you that romance and love can be as complex online as in reality:
Love @ Facebook by Nikita Singh
Nikita Singh’s first novel tells the story of Vatsala, a girl who has a huge crush on one VJ Ron aka Ronit Oberoi. Her fascination with the TV star is so immense that she sends him a friend request on Facebook and to her friends’ surprise, he accepts it as well. They chat regularly, comment on each other’s pictures, and the platform lets Vatsala’s crush to turn into such an obsession that she is unable to register her friend professes his love to her.
You Were My Crush…Till You Said You Love Me by Durjoy Dutta
The novel revolves around the character of Benoy Roy, a super rich brat who comes across the profile of a middle-class girl, Shaina, on Facebook while checking out some friend’s list. He falls head over heels for her and longs to be with her even before meeting her. Though they eventually meet and the story takes a rather cute turn, the online fascination just reflects how we actually sometimes scroll through friends’ list and chance upon somebody we like.
It’s Your Move, Wordfreak by Falguni Kothari
The novel revolves around the story of Aryan and Alisha, two people based in Mumbai, who create fake identities online and chance upon each other on a Scrabble game site. They begin to gel well and create an image of each other’s personalities in their mind, which slowly shatters as they start seeing each other. The plot further is about how their real personalities change the course of their relationship.
It Started With A Friend Request by Sudeep Nagarkar
Contrary to what the book’s title suggests, the novel’s protagonists, Akash and Aleesha, do not meet each other through Facebook. They chance upon each other at a discotheque and fall in love at the first sight. They exchange their BBM pins and it’s from there that their friendship blooms into a fully fledged romance. They exchange texts as sweet as love letters and develop a relationship that becomes the envy of Akash’s friends.
All Rights Reserved For You by Sudeep Nagarkar
The novel is about Aditya, a writer, and Jasmine, who absolutely hates reading. They fall for each other despite being polar opposites. The story unfolds in how, despite being miles apart from each other, the lovebirds strive to keep their long distance relationship alive via Facebook, Skype, and Whatsapp. The author intends to highlight the point that despite being unconventional, long distance relationships can work very well.
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