Selected for Round 3 of Best Indie Books Award (BIBA) 2025
Ninety Hours of Desire
Kamala, a transgender water-distributor from suburban Chennai, boards the Vande Bharat Express with a valid ticket and a quiet need for rest. Beside her sits CMD, a corporate titan under fire for glorifying the 90-hour work week.
What begins as awkward silence unfolds into a charged, intimate reckoning of labour, dignity, and the cost of ambition.
Ninety Hours of Desire is a collision of two Indias: one that builds, and one that sustains.
The moments that shaped Ninety Hours of Desire
The Soul
The Provocation
The Soul
In the 1980s, our village had a transgender woman who stood out in her blue lungi and pale-yellow T-shirt. Every morning, she drew water from the common handpump and the village well, carrying pot after pot to the homes that depended on her. She charged a small fee for each pot. That was her business, her independence.
She rarely spoke. H
In the 1980s, our village had a transgender woman who stood out in her blue lungi and pale-yellow T-shirt. Every morning, she drew water from the common handpump and the village well, carrying pot after pot to the homes that depended on her. She charged a small fee for each pot. That was her business, her independence.
She rarely spoke. Her words were limited to the number of pots she had delivered. But her silence was not emptiness—it was self-respect.
She never accepted anything for free. Even if someone gave a gift, she insisted on paying for it—with three pots of water.
That was her currency. That was her pride.
She lived on the margins yet carried herself with grace, without preaching or protesting. She simply lived with dignity, and in doing so, she taught us what dignity truly means.
She is the soul of this novel. Her strength, her silence, and her unspoken longing for belonging shaped the heart of Ninety Hours of Desire.
The Seed
The Provocation
The Soul
While waiting at a traffic signal one morning, I saw a transgender woman asking for alms near our car.
At that very moment, a Vande Bharat Express glided past on the tracks in the distance.
I turned to my daughter and asked, “Can she travel in that train?”
My daughter paused and said, “She may not be able to. Even if she could afford it, s
While waiting at a traffic signal one morning, I saw a transgender woman asking for alms near our car.
At that very moment, a Vande Bharat Express glided past on the tracks in the distance.
I turned to my daughter and asked, “Can she travel in that train?”
My daughter paused and said, “She may not be able to. Even if she could afford it, she might not go. Or they may not allow”
That exchange stayed with me. It revealed how quietly we carry bias, not out of malice, but out of habit. It made me ask:
Should a transgender woman be confined to begging on the streets?
Can’t she be offered work, dignity, and belonging?
What if she has ambition, works hard, and achieves it?
That moment became the seed for Ninety Hours of Desire.
The Provocation
The Provocation
The Provocation
“Given a choice, I’d enforce a 90‑hour workweek,” he said. “After all, how long can you stare at your spouse over long weekends.”
The casual remark made by the CMD of one of India’s largest corporations echoed across newsrooms, boardrooms, and bedrooms.
Some hailed it as boldness. Others condemned it as insensitivity.
That episode trigger
“Given a choice, I’d enforce a 90‑hour workweek,” he said. “After all, how long can you stare at your spouse over long weekends.”
The casual remark made by the CMD of one of India’s largest corporations echoed across newsrooms, boardrooms, and bedrooms.
Some hailed it as boldness. Others condemned it as insensitivity.
That episode triggered unsettling questions.
What if the CMD and a transgender water carrier who worked ninety hours a week without ever calling it ambition—found themselves travelling together on a Vande Bharat Express? What would happen if their worlds collided? Would they speak? Would they listen and would they find anything in common?
These questions are the foundation of the novel.
On the Vande Bharat Express to Mysore, seated in executive class, the CMD was travelling alone, seeking a few hours of quiet. He had no idea he was about to meet someone whose life challenged every assumption he carried about labour, dignity, and worth. By coincidence, he was headed to deliver a talk on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion—the very principles that the transgender woman embodied every day, not through policy or rhetoric, but through her silence, her resilience, and her unshakeable sense of self‑respect.
Selected lines from the novel
Work is not just hours. It is clarity, learning, dreaming, and giving back
Mistakes are like the first rain. If they don’t fall on you early, you’ll never grow your roots deep
Some people choke in the light, then blame you for not blooming.
But better days and better people return.
You just have to stand long enough to meet them at the bend
“Don’t call your company a family"
Kamala looked at the CMD and asked,."When poverty strikes a family, do parents throw their children out? Then who gave you the right to call your company a family?”
The CMD had no defence
“I don’t remember the names of the people I let go … but I remember their children’s eyes waiting in the lobby”
I am different, and I wanted to be different.
But, when the world refused to accept me as I am, I stopped waiting for its permission.
Between your corporate greed and our working-class needs, there is a vast, neglected corridor where happiness waits. Perform duty with sincerity, act with discipline. There, you’ll find it.
I am happy. Are you?
Dignity is not a favour. It is a right.
It is not about being extraordinary.
It’s about being allowed to be ordinary to travel, work, and exist without apology.
What the Readers Say
A quietly shattering and deeply human story
Ninety Hours of Desire touched me in ways few books do. What starts as a simple train journey becomes a profound conversation between Kamala — a transgender water-distributor from the margins, and a powerful corporate CMD. Their exchange moves gently but powerfully through pain, pride, silence, and truth.
Kamala’s memories of droughts, dreams, and daily dignity unfold with such honesty that they stayed with me long after. The CMD’s unraveling is subtle, but real. The writing is luminous — simple yet stirring, and full of empathy.
This book doesn’t shout — it listens. And in doing so, it makes you feel seen. A very well-written, gripping, and beautiful story! The author has a remarkable flair for storytelling — his writing is simple, lucid, and absolutely enthralling. The words seem to breathe life into the characters and the scenes, making them feel vivid and real.
Kamala's portrayal is inspiring
It really hurts when we call ourselves a superior species on the animal kingdom yet treat fellow humans as sub-human creatures.
I did like the lead character, kamala, the way the role has been built and portrait. It is inspiring.
We never have recognized or appreciated any differences from the usual. One more thing I always believed, “Wisdom does not go hand in hand with education, education would only support wisdom does not create it.” There are wise people who are not educated and there are highly educated people who are not wise at all. The hotel owner, Sethuraj and Chellamma are good examples of the same in the story
Worth Reading.
An award-winning story worth for a movie!!
This is an amazing must read book. The author takes us thru a journey of the village, scenes unfold very dramatically, about the people living there, quite a lot of detail given. The comparison between the corporate World and the humble real World very beautifully narrated. The CMD on his part is able to connect the dots and reflect about himself, his journey too in life. The train ride too goes into details explaining every place the train wounds thru' and brings us alive to the route.
Let our debates be human
One voice is shaped by boardrooms and balance sheets.
Another by survival, solitude, and self-definition.
Ninety hours of desire humanizes their debate