“To him she seems to be straight out of a Hallmark card with her ordinary every day philosophies while she thinks he’s straight out of the movie Wall Street, superficial and shallow.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

This is the sort of book that looks like a rom com but aha! It isn’t. Two people meet on a long flight, a weary mother with a baby and a lean mean Wall Street machine of a man. Seat 7A and 7B as they are referred to spend the 15 hours they have together exchanging uneasy notes about life philosophy in between changing diapers. She is an environmentalist with an optimistic outlook on life and philosophy. He is a materialist in every sense of the word. For him the parties always have to be happening. He has to drink the best Espresso from a special shop in a New York alleyway and he will not stop to airplane coffee even though he is dying for a cup. To him she seems to be straight out of a Hallmark card with her ordinary every day philosophies while she thinks he’s straight out of the movie Wall Street, superficial and shallow.

Both, incidentally, are global Indians, though he has a not so happening corner store background and a stepmother which he’s trying to overcome. They part and she refuses to exchange names or numbers but for the longest time they cannot get each other out of their heads. Sonia Bahl charts this tale through a series of deftly named Wednesdays, a whole year of them and has the reader wondering whether 7A and 7B are destined to end up together despite the fact that she is happily married to Riz and has two sons and an eternally absconding nanny who listens to Yo Yo Honey Singh.

Two different lifestyles run parallel with both seats thinking about what the other said. There is an incredible amount of detailing of different aspects of everyday living and millennial burn out. Sometimes yes, this seems like too much of a good thing and the differences between the Wednesdays seem to shade into each other, but the ‘will they won’t they’ factor keeps the pace going. And yes, they will but wait for it – it isn’t quite what you might expect, shades of An Affair to Remember and all.

 

Reviewed by:

Anjana Basu

Added 16th July 2019

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Anjana Basu