Say You’ll Be My Jaan by Naina KumarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Meghna is a modern Indian woman, she dates, she is a primary school teacher in Dallas and a frustrated playwright. Her parents and older brother are all engineers and she feels that her parents don't recognise her job as being as important as an engineer. When her mother offers to introduce her to a suitable Indian boy she is unsurprised when he turns out to be an engineer, after all if your daughter won't be an engineer she could at least marry one. Reeling from the news that her one-time boyfriend Seth, AKA the one that got away, is getting married, Meghna agrees to meet the guy.
Karthik is an HVAC engineer in New York. His parents' dysfunctional marriage has put him off the institution, also he sees far too much of his dismissive, angry, aggressive father in himself - if he's turning into his father he couldn't inflict that on a woman. As it is, Karthik spends much of his time trying to make up for his father's coldness and anger to his mother. So despite his decision to never marry, when his mother asks him to meet some nice Indian girls he can't say no - but he does insist on limiting the time to one year. Little did he know how many women his mother could introduce him to in a single week.
By the time they meet, Karthik has been on numerous of these arranged meetings but this is Meghna's first. She finds him cold and robotic, but he is mesmerised by her beauty and her laugh, and her smile. Although he intends to make an excuse for not seeing Meghna again, just like all the other girls, when his father makes a disparaging comment at family dinner Karthik finds himself saying that he is going to ask Meghna to marry him!
Meghna and Karthik strike up a deal. They will be fake engaged to friends, colleagues, and family for three months until after Seth's wedding where she has been persuaded to be the Best Man. That will release Karthik from the relentless introductions which are dominating his weekends, and have the side effect of making him appear more committed for a promotion at his firm.
As family and wedding events force the two of them to appear engaged on multiple occasions Meghna begins to see the real man behind the stilted, closed-off facade and realises that Karthik is 100% supportive of her. Meghna also starts to see that her deep friendship with Seth may be a bit one-sided with her giving all the time and Seth doing the taking.
I really liked this, I thought Karthik's fears were well articulated and his actions were in accordance with those fears, ie even when he felt like he might be falling in love with Meghna he was afraid of losing his temper and hurting her so wouldn't take it further. I also like Meghna's character and that she wasn't the scapegoat/the one who had to change.
My only minor criticism is that Meghna and Karthik were very Westernised Indians, TBH it felt like the only reason they were Indians was to introduce the idea of parents choosing their partners. It feels like a silly criticism but I wanted them to be a bit more Indian, rather than characters who could be white Americans if you removed the arranged marriage part?
Anyway, a lovely opposites attract, fake-relationship, romance.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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