With Indians moving abroad as entrepreneurs, professionals, students and artists and foreigners coming to India for the same reason, inter-cultural relationships and cross-border marriages are bound to happen. With this as the background, Julia Regul Singh has penned her first full-fledged novel Leap of Faith (Rupa) — a light and an interesting read.
The professional urban planner wrote a children’s book Boris the Bench during her stay in New York in 2010 and describes it as a great learning experience.
The novel revolves around the progress of the relationship between Andalip, an Indian investment banker and Christina, a German, teaching sociology, towards marriage, leading them to move to India from New York for an Indo-German wedding. Incidentally, Julia, is a German married to an Indian. “I had been visiting India, but moved here after my son’s birth. Even though the focal point of the story is marriage, it could have been an office relationship or a family too. Obviously, I write about what I know best.” Readers abroad will enjoy the vivid details of Punjabi marriage rituals. Julia personally views relationships across caste, religion and countries as workable and sustainable. “Like any other relationship, one needs to work at it.”
Apart from her personal experience and observations, stories heard from friends and those who underwent cross-cultural relationships and marriages also helped Julia.
“It is definitely a work of fiction. I liberally added my imagination to all the inputs.”
On ending the book with “to be continued”, the writer says, “I kept my option open to author a sequel.”
