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Sunday book pick: Namita Gokhale's 1984 debut novel, 'Paro', is sassy, sexy, and savage
Scroll | September 14, 2025 8:39 PM CST

Paro is a lust story. Between Paro and Priya. Paro and BR. BR and Priya. And, Paro, Priya and BR. No, it is a love story. There are the tender first sights, the ravenous first kisses, the inevitable fallouts, and the imminent reconciliation. Like planets orbiting the sun – bound and servile – so too a galaxy of lesser mortals revolve around the callous and charismatic Paro. No one really knows where she has come from, but she is destined for greatness – great drama, great notoriety, and great tragedy. Paro is a fever dream and nightmare, and no one who drifts into her forcefield will wake up unscathed.

It takes two to tango

Priya, the narrator, is on a mission. She started as the top boss’s secretary at a home appliance company and with minor cunning and a rightly-timed arranged marriage proposal has climbed up the social ladder in Delhi and Mumbai by buzzing around the right people at the right time. Priya’s husband, Suresh Kaushal, begins as a modest lawyer of terrifying appetite and, through sheer resilience and a kink for humiliation sticks it out with maharajahs, netas, bureaucrats and a temperamental Paro to get what he desires – to be...

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