By 
“Right Fit Wrong Shoe” is a Bollywood-style cinematic love story between a handsome boy and a hot girl next door, Nandini and Aditya. The plot is very predictable and shows the typical chemistry between a boy and a girl set in the small town of Kanpur. Nandini’s family and Aditya’s family are old family friends and their mothers are best friends. Their friendship begins with a love-hate relationship, it begins to blossom after the Sarin family becomes neighbors with the Sharma family. Firebrand Nandini is not your typical girl next door. She is a twenty-six year old, passive-aggressive, bubbly, creative, lazy, unambitious working girl. The sultry siren unaware of her own sex appeal is like Mount Vesuvius, dormant but ready to explode when the atmosphere turns scorching. Her traditional femininity philosophy mixed with liberal doses of female empowerment makes her simple life complicated. Nandini’s spirit cannot be trampled or tamed. Aditya dares to face this spit and hopes to dominate her while she teaches him a lesson for some imagined damage done to her manly ego. This unorthodox fusion of masculine and feminine logic makes for good light reading.
Varsha’s writing is quick, fresh, witty and peppered with picturesque imagery. Exciting dialogues drive our interest in the story line. Phrases in English, embellished with onomatopoeic words, topped off with clever one-liners, keep us energized and divided. Human relationships are explored very delicately. The book is like a Bollywood movie with each chapter headed by a movie title. Equal importance is given to friendship and the feminine bond. Nandini and Sneha’s friendship is very realistic in its depiction. Sneha always knows what goes on inside Nandini’s heart and mind. She pushes her to get a life of her own. Her friendship warms the cockles of many hearts as it is a true reflection of how women come together and stand up for each other. It is set in contemporary times and reflects society as it is now, where modernization rubs shoulders with the space of tradition.
The story begins on a wistful-comic note of Nandini feeling depressed and lost, as the news of the handsome billionaire Aditya’s arrival in her city, her organization, her family and her life ignites her volcano. Like a chocolate wrapper unwrapping with anticipation to enter the heady, gooey chocolate center, Varsha ushers us into a maddening snail’s pace into the intricate heart of Aditya vs. Nandini’s showdown. The story that had begun with Aditya’s arrival at the beginning of the novel slips forward in flashback after the first chapter. Before meeting Aditya and Nandini, they have already loved each other and parted ways with a dark secret keeping them apart and for which Aditya holds Nandini as emotional ransom. The battle lines are already drawn. The four years that kept them apart have been bitter years for Aditya, who has returned with retribution on his mind.
Nandini, the quintessential woman with a marshmallow for a heart and oodles of common sense for her brain, has moved on to make a life for herself. She is a very tough and dynamic head of the design team at Ace Advertising Agency. She has been selflessly and tirelessly working for pennies for the most ungrateful boss who sells the company at the first opportunity, while she keeps the employees in the dark about it. It happens that Nandini, on a very depressing day when everything goes wrong, finds herself unannounced face to face with her new boss, Aditya Sarin. From then on everything goes downhill for Nandini. Her reputation is on the line, her world is turned upside down, her family’s loyalty is hijacked, she slowly dies pretending all is well with her and Aditya’s mother, while living under Aditya’s searing hatred, enduring his verbal whiplash every day. and deftly evading his mischievous torpedoes, designed to bring down his defenses and rob him of his self-respect and respect for his teammates. She also has to steer a tight ship from her own department while dodging the slimy advances of her new department head who has her sexual sights set on her. Overall, it makes for an entertaining read, tickling our funny bones as we read Nandini and Aditya’s witty retort. Nandini reveals a woman’s ability to be demure and sensual, conventional yet sexy, down-to-earth and cunning at the same time. She is not one to sit and cry over broken milk or wear her heart on her sleeve.
Varsha Dixit believably constructs the portrait of Nandini as the lovable, capable, talented, family-oriented person we need every woman to be. A woman is equal to a man in every way. When she takes her for granted too many times, trouble besets the man who has trampled on her identity. Nandini teaches Aditya what it feels like to suffer. When Aditya sees Nandini groomed in a face to face with a strange man, ready to accept him as her boyfriend if it is acceptable, bolts of jealousy pierce her heart. Now her correct shoe is on the wrong foot. Aditya cannot bear to see Nandini marry someone else while Nandini is not ready to give him the time of day. The verbal projectiles fired back and forth by the main couple absolutely stunned us. Now Nandini wants to demand the pound of flesh from her like Shylock from “The Merchant of Venice.” Will Aditya get a second chance at love? Will they bury the hatchet? What is the dark secret that kept them apart? Will Aditya be man enough to handle Nandini’s fearless and wild spirit? To know the answers you must read the novel…
Aryan