The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India is a moving account of love in contemporary India. The book’s author, Mansi Choksi, follows three couples across the heartland of India as they navigate boundaries—of caste, class, religion, and traditional gender norms. What follows is a tale of romance, endurance, violence, and occasionally heartbreak. The Newlyweds does what most social science texts simply cannot—it brings us into the private lives of young people in love in India.

Mansi’s writing has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times, the New Yorker, National Geographic, Slate and the Atlantic. This week, she joins Milan on the podcast to talk about modern love in a changing India, how love and politics intersect, and what her book tells us about India’s social fault lines. Plus, Milan and Mansi discuss life in “Tier Two” India.

1. Mansi Choksi, “How ‘Love Commandos’ Help Young Lovers Cross Caste Lines,” Literary Hub, September 6, 2022.
2. Mansi Choksi, “‘Did You Feel a Fire Between Us?’” Slate, August 30, 2022.
3. “How Shah Rukh Khan Inspires Female Empowerment,” (with Shrayana Bhattacharya), Grand Tamasha, December 15, 2021.
4. “Neha Sahgal on Religion and Identity in Contemporary India,” Grand Tamasha, June 30, 2021.
5. “Rachel Brulé on Gender Quotas and Gender Inequality in India,” Grand Tamasha, May 26, 2021.
6. Snigdha Poonam, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World (Harvard University Press, 2018).