A contemporary love story with a strong social messageAbir wants to marry the woman of his dreams. But his fairytale love story gets tragically cut short when his family rejects her due to her dark skin color. His love story falls apart, and she separates from him for failing to defend her against his typical Indian prejudiced family. Abir is devastated by the colorism and lack of empathy displayed by his family, and the way it affected his life. He realizes that this is due to deep set social prejudices against dark-skinned women, who struggle to get accepted. Shattered by his failure to protect the love of his life, Abir sets on a spiritual journey to seek and spread the message of empathy. Years later, he bumps into his ex-flame serendipitously. But this time, she is with another man. What will happen to his unfinished love story now?
A note from the author
My book is a testimonial to colorism faced by millions of dark-skinned Indian women who are given lower status in the Indian society. Irrespective of how an Indian woman carries herself, irrespective of her education, or class, or talent, or sheer beauty, the first thing that makes a woman 'acceptable' in the Indian society is her skin color. It's an undercurrent, often not-talked-about but subtle profiling which makes women with darker skin tone find it very hard to get respect they deserve. Set in San Francisco and Kolkata, my novel is essentially a love story, but with colorism as a key theme, and, in parallel, a strong theme to pursue empathy in every interaction in our lives. I hope my voice makes you think about this deeply disturbing social issue. I also hope that the unshakable love between Abir and his lady love makes you fall in love again.
Some Reviews from Amazon Readers:
“I love reading foreign authors because there is a different kind of poetry to the words. This author is a storyteller. The love story was beautiful and kept me turning the pages. Can this be a movie, please?”
"A well-written page turner that is soon to become a modern day classic."
“I loved this romance novel as it offers so much more than the genre usually does.”
"If Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri was the most relate able transcontinental treatise for the first generation immigrants, the empathy engineer arouses similar nostalgia for my generation."
"The US is a cultural melting pot and we need more positive stories like this about enduring love and acceptance."
"The Empathy Engineer is a love story as well as a story about treating all of the people that we meet with dignity."
"A beautiful love story which highlights the themes of overcoming prejudice, self-reflection, and attaining love and respect in the universe."
"I also believe that this book can be easily adopted for a screenplay for a movie, which would be a hit with the Indian audience, considering love, acceptance and east/west interplay are such a big theme of many Bollywood movies."
"Beautiful story that really brings out human emotions."
"A beautiful love story that touches on prejudice and judgment, and the need for compassion, kindness and acceptance. A warm and wonderful message!"
