The Expectation of Tarun Mishra. Second Edition.

With The Expectation of Tarun Mishra, the author advances significantly relative to her debut novel by transferring the absolute protagonist role from the student body to the faculty. The new protagonist is a female professor whose youthful enthusiasm regarding her individual achievements progressively vanishes in the face of institutional reality. It is not merely her arduous personal labor that is consequential, but rather her environment; consequently, she begins to discern an uncertain future, replete with dissatisfaction, yet still imbued with expectation—such as that generated by the Indian playwright Tarun Mishra, who provides the title for the novel. The essence lies in unraveling the extent to which the life and work of an author mutually influence one another through the wordplay created between the title of the novel and that of the Indian playwright's theatrical piece. Framing the action is a Department of English Philology and, in the foreground, the development of a young doctor of philosophy who seeks her own space while navigating ambitions, conflicting interests, and disillusions. Once more, all of this is recounted with that neat and ironic style that characterizes her, interleaving her brilliant narration of an introspective nature with passages of an epistolary style and with ingenious dialogues that cause the novel to flow and draw the reader in with its minor anecdotes, its grand ideals, university developments, and the real life that intrudes upon the dreams and expectations of its protagonist. The Expectation of Tarun Mishra constitutes a novel that ought to be present in the library of every university member, irrespective of their status, and of every reader who derives enjoyment from a well-structured, well-set narrative with a meticulously crafted style; in short, one who enjoys a well-written novel.