Ashoka alum Nayantara Violet Alva’s (UG’19) debut novel, Liberal Hearts has already become a topic of conversation within the Ashokan community, possibly owing to numerous similarities between Ashoka and the fictional setting of the book — Maurya College Of Liberal Arts, a premier institute located in Sonipat. Alva makes no secret of the fact that her alma mater is a source of inspiration for the setting of her novel. She incorporates familiar motifs like the campus dhaba, a coffee shop called ‘Recharge Zone’, and the foundation courses, all of which feel instantly familiar to an Ashokan.
After reading the blurb, I initially dismissed the book as yet another typical college romance. But, while not being a fan of the genre, I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised by the depth it offered in parts. The story begins with a teenage girl’s journey through new college life, filled with crushes, parties, and friendships. It soon shifts gears, using these familiar elements as a framework to examine deeper issues like classism, casteism, and sexism. While these social themes are common in today’s literature, it is the way they intersect with everyday college life that makes this story unexpectedly engaging.
Namya, the protagonist, is a privileged student whose worldview shifts when she meets the neighbouring village Renadh’s prodigy, Vir, a highly intelligent and well-educated young man. Despite earning a scholarship to a prestigious school, due to his family’s financial struggles, Vir now runs a grocery store that supplies cigarettes to Maurya students right outside the campus. Their connection exposes her to an unfamiliar and harsh chasm of discrimination and marginalisation between the Maurya community and the villagers. The plot darkens when a local goon opens Tej ka theka, a liquor outlet-shack, threatening Vir’s business and becoming a hub for malpractice involving Maurya students. When Namya is drugged by the theka staff and narrowly escapes assault, she and Vir team-up to uncover a scheme that links some affluent Mauryans and the Theka owner.
One of the major drawbacks was none of the significant characters seeming like they have a personality of their own, be it Namya’s roommate, her best-friend, or any of the other recurring characters. The characterisation does not seem to be a strong point of the book, with most of the characters seeming like cookie-cutter figures of the stereotypical ‘internet culture’. The novel, though contemporarily relevant, suffers greatly from inconsistent vocabulary, which disrupts its authenticity. Major characters shift between British slang like 'snogging' and American terms like 'making out,' making it challenging to connect with them as realistic figures. This inconsistency seems like an attempt at portraying Indian teenagers, influenced heavily by diverse online media, but it ends up creating a fragmented character image and voice that feel inauthentic and distracting, which ultimately detracts from the reading experience. Authenticity is crucial in a story like this because its foundation lies in its exploration of deeply rooted social issues through the personal struggles of its characters; hence when the characters themselves feel inconsistent, it undermines the emotional connection necessary for the narrative to resonate with the readers.
A prime example is Devki, a second-year student admired by first-years and even local children from her teaching program, who is cast as a modern Gen Z icon, using terms like ‘rizz’ and ‘gal’ in the same sentence—slang from distinctly different eras that leaves readers unsure of the book’s setting in time. This reliance on surface traits like trendy slang and pop-culture references to convey their identities ends up feeling hollow, as the novel misses opportunities to explore the complexities of their personalities, motivations, and inner conflicts. The result feels more like a caricature of Gen Z than a genuine representation.
What Alva nails is making Namya feel completely real and relatable. She’s not just a character going through a typical campus experience; she’s flawed in realistic ways that add depth and evoke an emotional connection from within the readers without overpowering the story. Her nicotine addiction and struggles with body image are written with such casual honesty that they feel part of her everyday reality and not ploys for pity. What makes her even more compelling is her moral ambiguity. Instead of a soapbox hero, we get someone who is sometimes reluctant to speak out, like when she holds her tongue instead of arguing with her friend Devki over a serious issue, just to keep peace within her friend group. Her quiet hesitation in classes and in dealing with friends make her feel like a real person—a college fresher just trying to make it through the chaos, without the usual moral high ground act we often see in the protagonists of this genre. Namya’s relatability, grounded in both her strengths and her vulnerabilities, makes her story easy to connect with.
As Namya navigates life as a Mauryan with classes, complex relationships, and judgement from local students during her volunteer teaching, she begins to recognize the shallow grasp her privileged Mauryan peers have on the social issues they debate in class. Issues like caste and sexism are dismissed as “ancient” even as these prejudices actively shape the realities of both the village and the supposedly progressive Maurya circles. While this attempt at social commentary is well-intended to add a layer of complexity to the narrative, it falters, at places, in execution.
The novel gives significant attention to the divide between Maurya and Renadh, but the pursuit, at times, seems underdeveloped despite its potential to ground the story. Alva tries to depict the tension between the elitist Mauryan students and the marginalised villagers, and yet the situations through which the comparisons are drawn are often clumsy. In a particularly tone-deaf monologue towards the end, Namya reacts to Vir’s dismissal of their relationship, citing their class and culture differences, by equating the villagers' struggles of poverty and land dispossession to the Mauryan students’ frustration over being stereotyped as immoral by the locals. To most readers, this equivalence would seem to undermine the gravity of the villagers’ lived experiences and expose the story's struggle to fully unpack the complexities of classism. To some, however, it may seem relatable that Namya’s outburst is a realistic portrayal of how a young girl in love would react to being rejected by her crush on account of being too privileged to grasp the ‘real’ struggles of life.
Ultimately, Liberal Hearts is the foundation course we did not know we needed. It is part awkward first-year crush, part intense seminar on social issues, with a sprinkle of relatable moments. If you are looking for a cosy romance where everyone always says the right thing, or a heavy social commentary on the divides in our society, you might want to keep looking. But if you are into a protagonist who can barely get her own life together while trying to unravel the mysteries of a local liquor outlet and forming unusual alliances on the way, this book is your syllabus.
Alva’s debut might not be perfect, but it is definitely an interesting read that will have you thinking about college life and its messy realities long after you put it down. As an Ashokan, I personally enjoyed finding all the campus references as little easter eggs scattered throughout. So, if you are looking for a relaxing weekend read, go ahead, but just do not expect to find your own six-foot-tall intellectual prodigy hanging out in Asawarpur or plan an exposé on the secret liquor ring operating at the vada pav cafe.
(Edited by Mohan Rajagopal and Srijana Siri)
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