About Nidhi Dalmia
An alumni of St Stephen’s College in the University of Delhi, Nidhi pursued post graduate education at Oxford University and the Sorbonne and post-experience Management education at Harvard Business School. His professional life exposed him to diverse business responsibilities, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Born into one of India’s oldest industrialist families, he was brought up surrounded by a business and industry culture since childhood. Nidhi cherishes the spiritual environment prevalent in his home, where Vedas, Upanishads were a part of his home schooling.
Nidhi’s father, the late Ramkrishna Dalmia was one of the top three industrialists in India for several decades. He was a pioneer in several new industrial fields and by dint of hard work and innovation rose as a self-made industrialist to the top, in a career spanning both British India and Independent India (since 1947). His major interests included Cement, Chemicals, Jute, paper, Textiles, Sugar, Aviation, Insurance, banking, Newspapers, Dairy Products, Bakery Products and Electric Supply, to name only some. His business empire subsequently split up into a number of independent groups within the family.
Ramkrishna Dalmia almost managed to persuade Jinnah the creator of Pakistan, who was a close friend of his not to partition the country. Ramkrishna Dalmia’s visit to the UK and the US in the early 1950s in pursuit of his ideal of One World Government got considerable media attention specially in the US.
Nidhi was in his College Table tennis team at Oxford and also enjoys Tennis and Swimming. His interests include Cinema, Theatre, Opera and Classical music. At heart Nidhi is a wanderer and a romantic.
He divides his time between Delhi and Paris. Harp is his first novel.
Plot Synopsis
In his first novel, Harp, Nidhi Dalmia talks about love, passion and sacrifice. A coming of age tale, a love story of a young man searching for his true love. Set in late 60’s, this novel takes you to the world of music, literature and travel. The story is mesmerizing with really intense descriptions of the places from the smallest parts of Europe; it will take you to the Indian culture and morality.
It is a story of love revolving around three central characters. Ashok, who belongs to an industrial background, wants to learn more about Dairy production, leaves India. and travelled to Europe, where he meets a musician named Lauren from Poland and falls in love with her. And then, he finds another love Aparna, an Indian girl also thinking of Ashok as the ideal husband. Dalmia has also put a lot of foreign words using expressions (a glossary is included) and also the lyrics of the songs belong to that era to make you feel the sixties way. It has elements of the Dairy Industry and Business management however his writing makes them interesting for a layman person.
A heartwarming love story set in the times of communist Poland of 20 th century offers an interesting blend of characters and takes the reader through their notable progress. It is spicy and it is vibrant. The story is really refreshing as it blends with your regular love story. The twists & turns in this very unique story simply make it difficult to put it down.
HARP is spellbinding and one does not want to put the book down before knowing what happens to Ashok and Lauren. A telling aspect of the book is its depiction of the life style and passes time of the young of the string of countries Ashok visits. The simple things that establish their love interest is entertainment, music and dance. Remarkably woven in between the Ashok- Lauren saga is the existing socio-economic situation of that time in both India and abroad. In that sense Harp is a period book and a classic.