• Title  – When Hari Met His Saali 
• Author – Harsh Warrdhan
• Publisher – Harlequin India Pvt. Ltd.
• Genre – Fiction
• Pages – 237
• ISBN – 978-93-5106-449-7
• Price – 299 INR

Blurb on the Book – Tia was in love with her career and her lifestyle in America. And she was madly in love with Hari. But where was the romance she craved? Simi was the young girl left behind in a small town in India who hadn’t seen her sister for years. She was a dreamer. But what did she really want out of life? And then there was Hari. Straight-forward and uncomplicated, it felt nothing he did was ever good enough for Tia. But didn’t every man want an ambitious and successful wife no matter how demanding they were?

Theirs was a love story that was never going to be conventional. But what happened to Hari and Tia was something that nobody would have predicted.

Mix two sisters with bad history between them and one clueless man, to form one whacky triangle, and you get a cautionary lesson in how you should be careful of what you such for in the name of love?

Review – The book has a colourful, eye-catching cover that well captures the essence of the plot while showcasing the wit that forms the soul of the book. The title at once rouses suspicion whether the book has been inspired by the famous Hollywood flick ‘When Harry met Sally’ which I can safely say, it is not.

The book is divided into 11 long chapters that are further subdivided into scenes. The best part are the very creative, intriguing titles of them all. The characters in the book has been primarily limited to three main and a handful of supporting characters keeping the narration smooth, elaborate and leaving nothing to imagination.

The past, present and at places even the future of each character has been discussed at length. The book starts on a humorous note promising an entertaining read which it delivers right till the end.

The plot is simple, language lucid and narration impeccable that beautifully paints pictures in words. The book attempts at logically looking at every shade of its character’s personality in which it achieves success to a great deal.

The book is an interesting page turner till the half after which it becomes predictable, over elaborate and slowly begins to lose steam despite a very interesting twist in the events. The twist in the book from which the title is drawn comes with a very natural seeming turn of events but what follows next could have been better presented had the author limited the number of events around the climax.

The book comes across as having been written with the idea of being made into a as Bollywood movie at some point. Being a scriptwriter himself the author has succeeded in putting forth a picturesque narration.

Due care has been taken to pepper the chapters well with intimacy and passion which at times seems over done. The book is  a funny, fresh, and outrageous look at young people and their dreams, longings, aches and heart breaks.

“One loved me but wanted to change me. When I changed and became what she wanted, the other had issues with it. What kind of a man should I be?”

I personally feel the climax could have been dealt better had the author stuck to the ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ rule of thumb. Tia’s character has been painted in an overdose of dark shades in an attempt to make Simi (her sister) emerge as the innocent angel which somehow tips the book off its balance making the ending very predictable.

I wish to congratulate Harsh Warrdhan on coming up with an ‘hypnotizing’ entertaining read (pun intended) that left a smile plastered to my face for a long time. The book deals the real versus fictional romance combat in a very enlightening way. However, I’d like to suggest that the book would make a better read with elimination of unwanted details and trivia.

If you enjoy reading romantic comedies this book is just for you. Go indulge in the magic of a love triangle between two sisters and an ever confused man.

About the Author – Harsh Warrdhan is an engineer, graduate from Columbia College. He took up screenwriting as a strategic career when he headed to Los Angeles from Nagpur to study film-making.

Harsh has written and directed an American film and has written screenplays for films and TV. ‘When Hari Met His Saali’ is his first novel.

Rating – 3.5/5