The Year We Stayed

A novella based on a true story.
When Aryan, an Indian man, and Emily, his American wife, planned her first visit to
India, they imagined two weeks of chai, culture, and the beginning of their life
together. What they got instead was a year.
The day the COVID-19 lockdown sealed India's borders, Emily became something
she had never been stranded, dependent, and completely untethered from
everything familiar. No job. No family nearby. No way home. Just four walls, one
man, and a city she barely knew going silent outside their window.
What follows is a year unlike any other.
They run for rations at dawn. They fix a broken AC with borrowed parts and zero
expertise. They cook together until the kitchen becomes the most honest room in
their marriage. They watch money disappear and rebuild it from scratch. They fight
and forgive in the only space available. They get sick - both of them - and nurse
each other through the darkest nights. They find family in elderly neighbors and joy
in the smallest repairs.
And through all of it, they learn the thing no one warns you about marriage: that
love is not a feeling you fall into. It is a choice you make, quietly, in ordinary
moments, every single day.
The Year We Stayed; is a warm, deeply human novella based on a true story
a celebration of jugaad love, cross-cultural connection, and the beautiful,
exhausting, life-changing experience of being truly stuck with someone.
This actually happened. Every word of it.
Perfect for readers of The Kite Runner, A Place For Us, Normal People, and Eat
Pray Love.