Devapriya Roy, Saurav Jha's 'The Heat and Dust project' launched at Starmark

The book was launched by the National Award winning filmmaker Srijit Mukherji live via Skype.

Living in a sunny barsati in south Delhi, this story is about Saurav Jha and Devapriya Roy are your average DINK couple, about to acquire a few EMIs and come of age in the modern consumerist world.

Only, they don’t. They junk the swivel chairs, gain a couple of backpacks and set out on a transformational journey across India. On a very, very tight budget: 500 rupees a day for bed and board.

And so ‘The Heat and Dust Project’ begins.

Joining the ranks of firang gap-year kids and Israeli boys and girls fresh out of compulsory army service, Roy and Jha travel across this whacky, whimsical land, where five thousand years of Indian history seem to jostle side by side.

They stay in shady rooms, eat where locals do, have the most interesting conversations with people they will never ever see again.

They travel by cheap rickety buses that hurtle through the darkness of the night and the heat of the day, across thousands of miles, to ever new places. They encounter ghante-ke-hisaab se rooms and strange dinner invitations; they survive spectacular forts and tantrums.

This is a tale of the searching of youth, of eccentric choices, and the supreme test of marriage. Soon enough, the richness of this crowded palette spills over into their lives.

Saurav Jha is a commentator on energy and geopolitics. His first book The Upside Down Book of Nuclear Power was published by HarperCollins India in 2010.

Devapriya Roy is also an author of two popular novels: The Vague Woman’s Handbook (2011) and The Weight Loss Club (2013).