Like Being Alive Twice
In an unnamed nation that’s about to rupture, Priyamvada (Poppy), a Hindu and Tariq, a Muslim are in love. In a few hours, Tariq intends to propose; Poppy intends to say yes. Both assume that they’ll fend off political blowback. For, surely, their privilege will protect them.
But will it? Will Poppy and Tariq sustain a love so wholesome, so cossetted, that it remains impervious to a dystopian state? Or will the two be rent apart by chance and circumstance? What will their lives look like as they plunge into a brave new future, together or apart?
Written in alternating chapters, Like Being Alive Twice trails fact and possibility—the tale as-it-was and the tale as-it-could-have-been-if-only—arranging and rearranging, tweaking and nudging; hoping to find a lasting peace in one or the other story; hoping, above all else, that such peace will prevail over murderous times.
Politically urgent, stylistically intrepid, and relentless in its commitment to scrutinizing love, loss and the language of privilege, Like Being Alive Twice tells of the frantic pursuit of life piled upon life, even as a bloodied world closes in.
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ENGLISH (Indian Subcontinent) | Viking/PRH India
Prizes
Longlisted for the 2025 Ruskin Bond Award for Fiction
Reviews
"You could read one as a story of courage, another of cowardice; or think of both as meditations on the way love forces our hand. But it is perhaps read better as a requiem for all that is lost in a world where the experience of human life becomes quantifiable, measured against utility. [...] Bhaskar’s voice is sharp, the contours of her storytelling are tastefully restrained." Scroll.in
"This inter-religious love story set in a dystopian unnamed nation packs quite a punch. [...] It is an intense exploration of what it means to love in a fractured world." The Hindu
"In Like Being Alive Twice, Dharini Bhaskar poses an audacious question - in a system built against you, can your choices save you? Through the form of the dystopian love story, Bhaskar holds up a mirror to our present reality and then shows us what it can become. The prose is lyrical, fluid almost. Perhaps that is why it can snake its way from the story ‘as it was’ and ‘as it could have been’." Feminism in India
"A masterful comingling of love and dystopia, Like Being Alive Twice is an emotionally charged and unforgettable narrative experience." Monica Singh, Youth Ki Awaaz
"An unusual novel, straddling genres and styles with rare aplomb [...] Hard-hitting, timely, and unsettling, this is a book for our times: a reminder of what could happen." Open Magazine
"Few writers, in India and elsewhere, could pull off a novel that handles dystopia and defiance with such a delicate touch." Nilanjana S. Roy, author of The Wildings
"Dharini has written a novel that draws you in with its lightness and then pins you down with its portrait of the darkness of our times." Natasha Badhwar, author of My Daughters' Mum
"A thoughtful, quietly unsettling meditation on what it means to love in a time of divisions, and about the questions that linger after every illusion of choice." Sharanya Manivannan, author of The High Priestess Never Marries and Incantations over Water
"[...] writing is an art that explores the possibilities of life. And in each line of this novel, we encounter a writer who has proven her talent in its constant search. I am certain that Like Being Alive Twice will delight the sensibilities of discerning readers everywhere." S. Hareesh, author of Moustache, winner of the JCB Prize for Literature 2020
"This novel is an intimate history of audacity and secrets and safety, given and denied. It will stalk the reader’s consciousness long after one has left the last page." Sumana Roy, author of How I Became a Tree