ABlueprint for Love

Chatura Rao's first book was The Case of Disappearing Colour, a children's fantasy novel. Nabiya, a picture book for young children, and Growing Up in Pandupur- short stories co-written with Adithi Rao - are her other books for children. Her first novel for adults was Meanwhile Upriver. Chatura is also a freelance journalist. She conducts creative writing workshops at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai, and is the curator of the Chandigarh Children's Literature Festival. She blogs at https://storybed.wordpress.com/Haunted by memories of her dead sister and childhood home, Reva meets her sister's then-boyfriend, Suveer, every year for a day in a friendship that seems to offer each of them a way to come to terms with the past. Suveer is reporting an election story of 'dishousing' on a bungalow belonging to a Muslim businessman in a Hindu-dominated area of Gandhinagar. Unable to remain objective when the mob turns on Mahnoor, a young Muslim woman, he is beaten up and hospitalised. Without a second thought Reva leaves her husband and goes to him. Suveer and Reva seek shelter with Mahnoor and her husband Zahyan, who find the life they'd painstakingly constructed is slowly unravelling. This gripping story asks the question: where is home? Reva and Suveer, Zahyan and Mahnoor, be it in circumstances of love or loss, ever seek a path to return by.This is a story about seeking home - the places we inhabit and leave, intimate cupboards that both comfort and unsettle. The experience of home 'away', in memory or in imagination. Suveer and Reva, consciously and unconsciously, ever seek a path to return by.Chatura does not bother with sifting fact from fiction, she just sifts true from false. And this is a true story. It beats straight from the heart.A Blueprint for Love takes an unflinching look at the personal and political tragedies of our times while retaining the promise of the title. It is, above all, a story of love and of the struggle to stay true to oneself despite the odds.