Good Arguments

Twenty-something Delphi, a resident of Cooke Town, Bangalore, has just discovered the theatre. A production of Antigone becomes her portal to a new world. She meets a cast of varied and colourful people and is pro-pelled into a cultural milieu she doesn't fully understand but is eager to be a part of.As she tries to find her footing on stage, Delphi also navigates the everyday realities of her young life. There's her mother Asha, who wants her to enrol in a respectable master’s degree. There's her best friend Su, who is in a less-than-ideal marriage. And there is V, her somewhat-boyfriend and co-conspirator, who she opens a theatre company with. There's also music—so much of it.As the city’s theatre landscape braces for the opening of a new venue, Navarasa, Delphi stands at the brink of her new life, ready. But shortly after, the country erupts into protests in the aftermath of the hor-rific 2012 gangrape. Now her questions, both on and off stage, begin to overlap and confront each other.Whose story becomes whose to tell and who benefits from it?In an already confusing, underfunded contemporary arts landscape, Good Arguments is a tender coming-of-age novel in which Delphi and her com-panions follow their calling. It looks at a life in the theatre both critically and with love.