Though the novelist Revathi Suresh didn’t intend to write an existential novel, her ‘In Now & Then’ provides a quasi-existential reading experience to readers of all age groups. The 20-something protagonist Kavya’s life combines the spirit of Rene Descartes’ ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (I think, therefore, I am) and the French existentialist and apatheist Albert Camus’, ‘I rebel; therefore, I exist.’ Kavya thinks and rebels and only those who can think, can also rebel. Her resentment towards her parents, her uneasiness in getting along with her peers, her baffled state of mind are all very familiar symptoms when an individual, especially a young and otherwise vivacious gal, passes through this particular period.
The urban metaphor of finding a toehold in an overcrowded local train can be seen and experienced in Kavya’s coming of age. This is the age, when a thinking girl like Kavya is beset with existential dilemmas, adulthood crises and relational cobwebs. She wants to militate against everything with a psycho-biological compulsion. This is an age of flux and fury. Revathi has depicted this state of mind of a young girl with remarkable precision and also with utmost empathy. Readers will identify with the protagonist and reenact Kavya’s experiences. It’s like your own story is being retold through a book and its primary character. Despite being a sequel to the same author’s Jobless Clueless Reckless, In Now & Then is an independent book with a greater punch and pugnacity. Using an odd oxymoron, despite Kavya’s palpable peevishness, there’s something lyrical in her persona as suggested by her name!