Sonia and Sunny Are Matched From Across the World

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny begins in Allahabad in 1998, where Ba, Dadaji, and their fifty-five-year-old unmarried daughter Mina Foi live in a decaying old bungalow on Cadell Road. Their comfortable past has largely disappeared, although Ba still obsesses over the family jewels and Dadaji clings fiercely to the remnants of their old life.

Their son Manav calls from Delhi with troubling news about his daughter Sonia Shah, who is studying literature and creative writing at Hewitt College in Vermont. Sonia is deeply depressed and lonely. Dadaji has little patience for the concept of loneliness and advises her to exercise and study harder, but the family soon develops another solution.

Dadaji’s neighbor, Colonel Sahib, has an unmarried grandson named Sunny Bhatia living in New York. Dadaji once lost a great deal of money after following the Colonel into a disastrous investment, giving the Colonel a lingering sense of guilt. Dadaji, Ba, and Mina Foi decide to exploit that history by proposing Sonia as a match for Sunny.

Neither Sonia nor Sunny knows that their families are beginning to push them toward each other.

Sonia Falls Into Ilan’s World

Sonia spends the Vermont winter nearly alone, working in the college library and finishing her thesis. She misses her mother, Seher, and keeps close the silver Badal Baba amulet Seher gave her before she left India. The strange tantric image inside once belonged to Seher’s German artist father, Siegfried Barbier, who disappeared in the Himalayas when Seher was young.

At the library Sonia meets Ilan de Toorjen Foss, a wealthy, secretive painter more than thirty years her senior. He takes her to dinner, sketches her, and aggressively pursues her. Sonia initially resists him but eventually begins spending weekends at his estate.

The relationship becomes increasingly disturbing. Ilan is charismatic and intellectually fascinating, but also extraordinarily volatile. He erupts over insignificant things, screams at Sonia, demands constant reassurance, and expects her to organize herself around his emotional needs. Yet whenever she pulls away, he draws her back.

After graduation, Ilan helps Sonia obtain a job at Lala Leone Leloup’s art gallery in Brooklyn. Lala’s art world proves exploitative in its own way, with wealthy male collectors treating young women as commodities. Eventually Ilan reappears in New York, and Sonia resumes their affair.

His behavior becomes worse. He throws food Sonia cooks out the window, destroys household objects, rips her belongings, and orders her out—only to call days later crying and begging her to return. Sonia’s former library supervisor Marie recognizes what is happening and warns her that Ilan is using his instability to control her.

Then Sonia finally learns the full truth. After Ilan receives enormous acclaim for a new painting, she returns to his apartment with him and finds a red-haired woman waiting there: Ilan’s wife.

Rather than denying anything, Ilan collapses and begs his wife not to abandon him. His wife calmly tells Sonia that Ilan has cheated repeatedly, fathered children with other women, and depends upon a constant supply of women to reassure him. Sonia leaves humiliated and heartbroken. Only afterward does she realize that she accidentally left her Badal Baba amulet beneath Ilan’s mattress. She tries to retrieve it but cannot get back into his apartment.

Both Families Begin Falling Apart

Sonia’s problems are mirrored by a crisis in her parents’ marriage. During a drunken argument in Delhi, Manav accelerates his car toward Seher while she is standing near their gate. She manages to jump away, but the incident permanently changes their relationship.

Seher moves into Sonia’s empty bedroom and eventually decides to leave Manav altogether. She cuts her hair, gets a job, and begins rebuilding an independent life. Manav becomes consumed by jealousy. Finally Seher retreats to Cloud Cottage, her family’s mountain property in Landour, and tells Manav she intends to live separately without taking his money.

Sunny’s life in America is unraveling too. He lives in Brooklyn with his American girlfriend Ulla, whom he has hidden from his mother, Babita. When the Shah family’s formal marriage proposal arrives—complete with a photograph of Sonia—Ulla finds it. She sees Sunny’s secrecy as evidence that he is ashamed of their relationship or still wants an Indian woman as an option.

Sunny insists he is merely protecting Ulla from his interfering family, but the argument exposes deeper problems. His friend Satya suggests that Sunny and Ulla have built their relationship partly around romanticized ideas of each other’s cultures. A later visit to Ulla’s family in Kansas only intensifies their conflict, and the relationship finally collapses.

Sonia’s American life ends as well when Lala refuses to continue sponsoring her visa. She returns to Delhi exhausted and emotionally shattered. Manav, now living without Seher, is horrified by how diminished his daughter appears.

Sonia slowly begins working again. Through family friend Ferooza, she receives an assignment from Kala Magazine to write about the history of Indian kebabs. The work gives her a reason to move through Delhi and begin reconnecting with life.

Sonia and Sunny Finally Meet

Sunny returns to India with Satya, who has decided to pursue an arranged marriage. After several prospective-bride meetings go badly, Sunny travels with Babita to Allahabad.

By coincidence, Sonia and Manav are aboard the same overnight train. They are returning because Dadaji has died.

Sunny first notices Sonia reading Snow Country in her berth. Their real meeting comes later at the crumbling Cadell Road bungalow. Dadaji’s death has exposed how little remains of the Shah family’s supposed fortune. He squandered his savings on bad investments, the treasured jewels are worth far less than expected, and the family is finally losing its ancient lease on the bungalow.

Babita sneaks into the house one night hoping to persuade the Shah family’s cook to work for her. Mina Foi catches her, and Sunny arrives to retrieve his mother. When he asks for water, Sonia appears carrying a candle.

They immediately recognize something in each other.

Mina Foi later tells Sonia that Sunny is the man Dadaji once tried to arrange for her to marry. Over the following evenings, Sunny repeatedly finds excuses to return. He and Sonia sit together on the veranda talking about America, their families, and the loneliness both have experienced.

After the bungalow is surrendered, Mina Foi unexpectedly finds a new life as a dormitory matron at a convent school. What initially appears to be another family loss becomes a source of stability and purpose for her.

Twelve Days in Goa

Satya eventually chooses Pooja as his bride and invites Sunny along on their honeymoon trip to Goa. The arrangement quickly becomes awkward when Satya grows jealous of Sunny’s rapport with Pooja and asks him to leave.

Sunny relocates to Borda d’Agua, an old Portuguese mansion in South Goa.

Then Sonia arrives.

She has been assigned to write about Goa’s historic mansions and, by coincidence, has booked the same property. Freed from their families and ordinary lives, Sonia and Sunny spend twelve intensely happy days together. They explore Goa, visit churches, eat local food, swim, talk, and fall deeply in love.

But Sonia still carries the damage Ilan left behind. Nightmares and memories repeatedly intrude on her happiness. During one beach outing, she and Sunny are also pursued by a terrifying white dog that seems to disappear as mysteriously as it appeared.

Despite Sonia’s fears, Sunny asks her not to leave him. They promise to remain together and return to Delhi as a couple.

Death Pulls Them Apart

Babita is furious when she learns Sunny has fallen in love with Sonia, convinced that the Shah family is still manipulating hers because of the Colonel’s old failed investment.

Then the Bhatia family is hit by violence. Sunny’s uncles Ravi and Rana are found bludgeoned to death. There is no sign of forced entry, several household employees disappear, and disturbing criminal activity connected to people around the household comes to light. Babita begins receiving anonymous threats warning that she will be killed if she does not leave. Terrified, she admits herself to a hospital.

At almost the same time, Manav becomes seriously ill. Doctors diagnose him with stage-four lymphoma.

Sonia devotes herself to caring for her father through chemotherapy and radiation. Seher returns from Landour to help, but she does not resume their marriage. Manav eventually dies in the ICU, and Seher and Sonia take his ashes into the mountains near Uttarkashi.

Sunny, meanwhile, returns to New York. His essay Reading Hemingway in Allahabad, Reading Hemingway in Jackson Heights wins a PEN travel grant, and his green card is approved. Professionally, the life he once wanted is finally becoming possible, but Sonia remains in India.

Babita and Sonia Find Each Other

Babita sells her share of the family property in Delhi and buys Casa das Conchas, a centuries-old Portuguese mansion in Goa. The purchase immediately becomes complicated when local families claim hereditary rights involving parts of the property, and Babita learns that the sale itself may be legally flawed.

After Manav’s death, Sonia also moves to Goa, renting a cottage in Cavelossim and trying to begin again.

During a reporting trip elsewhere in India, Sonia survives a frightening assault by a tour guide named Madan. Shaken, she seeks refuge with the most unlikely person: Babita.

Instead of turning her away, Babita welcomes her inside.

Over kebabs and Agatha Christie movies, the two women finally stop treating each other as enemies. They talk through their grief, humiliations, secrets, and shared fear of ending up alone. Babita ultimately gives Sonia her mother’s ruby-and-emerald wedding jewelry, symbolically accepting the woman she once fought so hard to keep away from Sunny.

Sunny Comes Home to Sonia

Sunny eventually travels to Mexico, where he discovers that Ilan has mysteriously disappeared from his estate in Guanajuato, leaving behind unfinished artwork.

More importantly, Sunny recovers something Sonia thought she had lost forever: the Badal Baba amulet she left behind during her disastrous relationship with Ilan.

Sunny finally understands that neither his success in New York nor his legal right to remain in America matters enough to keep him away from Sonia. He also feels responsible for returning to India and confronting the unfinished obligations surrounding his family.

He flies back and makes his way south to Goa.

At dusk, Sonia is inside Casa das Conchas when she hears the familiar owl call Sunny once used with her. She opens the doors and finds him outside.

Around his neck is the silver Badal Baba amulet, carried safely back to her after everything that has happened.

Sonia and Sunny embrace on the balcão, finally reunited after years of loneliness, failed relationships, family interference, death, and separation. The following morning, they walk together toward the Arabian Sea.

As dawn rises, Sonia and Sunny enter the water and swim out into the waves together, ending the story side by side rather than alone.