What would you do if you spent three years toiling away on a labour of love, only to have it rejected because you didn't have the 'experience' deemed necessary for storytelling? If you're Shaun Mehta, you'd ignore these dismissals and print it anyway, independently. Toronto-based Mehta, is an ingenue. Or, one might argue, his alter ego 'Divya' is. His first novel, Divya's Dharma is inspired by some of his own experiences while studying in Bangalore, ironically written in the first person with a female perspective.

At his recent Toronto book launch, Mehta laughed, saying he found looking through the female perspective a “challenge to write and too great an opportunity to pass up.” Mehta conceded that secondary and background characters were inspired by instances and individuals he encountered daily.

For a first attempt, Mehta doesn't fare badly. The writing is relatable, and scenarios are instantly visualized. The protagonist, Divya Ambani, is a seemingly “average” East Indian Canadian traveling to Southern India, to study at the prestigious Indian Institute of management in Bangalore. This is her first time in India, and while she has heard carefully concocted stories of her parent's lives in post-partition Punjab, she has never met any of her relatives. Her “cultural exchange” turns into something much more, as she discovers her destiny and her place in a country that becomes her real home.

The novel starts off as another coming-of-age story, with a twist. The timeless issues of caste wars, corruption, poverty, new 'radical' ideas, NRI distaste and murder merge nicely with the East/West readjustments found in recent times. Depictions of child abuse and Dalit victimization are perhaps the most poignant. The cruel realities of what so many live with will traumatize even the most jaded reader. Only more fightening is the passive irreverance that the story's antagonists encounter, out of fear and of helplessness.

Heavily driven by its secondary characters, Divya's Dharma is often overwhelmed by the appalling and extreme situations faced in modern India. Although well written, researched and timely (in regards to topics such as political terrorism), the book resembles a masala film without the song and dance making some of the subplots a little over the top at times. But that is perhaps what is needed here- a masculine perspective of the India's aggressions through NRI observances. After all, we already have an Arundhati Roy.