Take a moment and think of ‘Heer Ranjha’, ‘Soni Mahiwal’, ‘Layla Majnu’ or even ‘Romeo and Juliet’. What do they all have in common? The one glaring answer is that these tales are testimonies of true love. Even though all these stories are fiction, it is safe to assume they must be inspired by real people who lived at some point in history. Perhaps it is this very fictionalization of romance that has our generation so cynical about whether true love of such magnitude can even exist for real.

In this book, Shruti Malik has set out to dispute just that. To honour true love in its raw, vulnerable and exquisite moments, she tells the tale of her late grandparents who not only raised her but were also the source of a beautiful story. Through the heartbreak of losing them, she could think of no other way to pay tribute to them other than by having their lives eternalized in print.

And just like the old masters wrote the tales of ‘Heer Ranjha’ or ‘Romeo and Juliet’, she too wishes to portray the beauty of a love story with the swaying tones of poetic form.