Set in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, Kashmir and Delhi in the late '60s, intertwined with the significant cultural, student, sexual and intellectual revolutions taking place around that time, Afternoon is the story of a young student finding the love of his life and two young women whose lives intersect with his at different points of time.
It is also the story of a Kashmiri Muslim girl who carried memories and impressions of her home state but grew up in Delhi.
The other woman, an American Field Service worker from Upper East Side New York, finds life taking unexpected turns on a short field visit to India. Her visit confirms her decision to go to Berkeley instead of the Seven Sisters where she had also got admission because of her academic brilliance.
The Cold War mentality and way of looking at each other had not left either America or the USSR. Conscription and a highly unpopular Vietnam War were raging. The Establishment in Berkeley and elsewhere in California was as determined as the idealistic students to get its way, which meant crushing their movements.
There are threats to these relationships from other interested parties and events. The decisions that are involved in inter-continental relationships. The belief that there is nothing more important than love.
Afternoon best reflects how our lives are shaped by the choices we make and factors beyond our control.
Dalmia, Nidhi: - An alumnus of St Stephen's College in the University of Delhi, Nidhi Dalmia pursued post-graduate education at Oxford University and the Sorbonne and post-experience management education at Harvard Business School. His professional life exposed him to managing various factories.
Nidhi cherishes the spiritual environment prevalent in his home, where Vedas and Upanishads were a part of his home schooling. Nidhi's father, the late Ramkrishna Dalmia, was one of the top three industrialists in India. He was a pioneer in several industrial fields and by dint of hard work and innovation rose as a self-made industrialist to the top, in a career spanning both British India and Independent India. Ramkrishna Dalmia's visit to the UK and the US in the early 1950s in pursuit of his ideal of One World Government got considerable media attention, especially in the US.
Nidhi was in his college table tennis team at Oxford and also enjoys tennis and swimming. His interests include cinema, theatre and western, pop, folk and classical music. At heart, Nidhi is a wanderer and a romantic.
This is his second novel. His first novel
Harp was released in 2016 and received critical acclaim from leading newspapers and magazines including the
Hindustan Times, Deccan Chronicle, among others.
He divides his time between Delhi and Paris.
