Some people never leave you. Even when they do.
Ten years after she left, Aparna Bose returns to the sleepy town of Gulmohar Ganj, only to find that everything has changed and nothing has.
Now a war and political correspondent used to living out of suitcases and headlines, Appy is back on the very streets where she once learned how to love, how to fight, and how to leave things unfinished.
But home isn't always a place. Sometimes, it's a moment, a memory, a person.
Sometimes, it's five people, each holding a version of you that you no longer recognize.
Told through a rich, non-linear narrative, Under the Gulmohar Sky is a deeply emotional novel about love, friendship, nostalgia, and the quiet ache of growing up together and apart. Spanning three timelines: childhood, teenage years, and adulthood memories blend with the present to unravel stories left unsaid.
At the heart of it is Appy, poetic, kind, and quieter than most people realize.
And the boys who orbit her life in complicated ways:
Kabir Mehra, the brooding Air Force officer tied to the past.
Zayan Mirza, the doctor she never truly let go of.
Shaurya Malhotra, the best friend who always saw her.
Vihaan Sood, the professor who speaks in poetry.
Rishi Awasthi, the quiet antique collector with too many unsaid things.
Some stayed. Some left. Some tried to forget. But in Gulmohar Ganj, everything finds its way back.
Come home to Gulmohar Ganj.
Somewhere between the pages, you might just find a version of yourself.