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A novel on corporate life Rajesh Khullar: Viral Match, Rupa & Co., pp 280, Rs 195.00 This novel, written by an administrative officer, is about a 24-year old Vandana who gets married to young and ambitious Vishal who rises spectacularly in the corporate world. Vandana, ensconced in the pleasures of her ideal married life, is unable to figure out ?what grew faster, their love or their riches?. Vishal has a mistress Anna in Mumbai whom he frequently visits during his travels to the city. Meanwhile Vandana gets pregnant and is on cloud nine. After six months of pregnancy, while undergoing routine tests on a sweltering June afternoon, her picture-perfect world comes crumbling down. She is diagnosed that she is HIV positive. ?The room swirled unpleasantly. The floor seemed to dip and waver like a merry-go-round?The merry-go-round broke and suddenly dropped a hundred feet?Every bit of colour drained from her cheeks?Shock reverberated with a paralysing effect all the way down from her brain to her toes.? Devastated by the diagnosis, Vandana resolves to unravel the riddle of what hits her. In a moment, the loving couple gets transformed into disparate individuals. Vandana persuades Vishal to accompany her for the HIV test. So, on Vandana?s insistence, he undergoes the HIV test and waits apprehensively for the result, wondering if a ?death sentence or life imprisonment? awaits him. A chain reaction of love and lies, punctuated with deceit unfolds. Will their marriage survive? Will their lives recover when they come face to face with the truth? Yes, it does, but after a lot of trials and tribulations and after running up and down. (Rupa & Co., 7/16 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002.)

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