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Overall Summary
When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), a young adult novel by Sandhya Menon, is about the relationship between two teenagers of Indian heritage who attend a tech camp. The book was praised for its realistic and unique depiction of how second-generation teens react to their mixed cultures.
Dimple Shah is an 18-year-old girl who wants to go to Stanford. She plans on going there to build a career, but her parents want her to find an Indian husband while she’s at university. Her mother especially wants this and thinks Dimple should focus on finding a husband first because family comes before career in India.
Dimple wants to attend a summer program in San Francisco called Insomnia Con, but her parents are reluctant. They eventually agree and Dimple interprets this as an acknowledgment of her desire to pursue web development rather than the pressure for marriage.
Meanwhile, another Indian-American teen named Rishi is obedient to his parents and wants to follow their wishes. His parents want him to go to MIT for a successful career, which led him to give up on his passion of drawing comics. They also want him married off as soon as possible, so he’s agreed with them about attending Insomnia Con (a convention) in San Francisco where they plan on setting him up with someone who could be his future wife. However, when he meets Dimple at the coffee shop near San Francisco State University, she assumes that he’s hitting on her because they were set up by their parents together without telling either of them what was happening. This leads her to throw iced coffee in his face and run away from the scene.
Rishi approaches Dimple again and explains the situation to her. She realizes that her parents are trying to get them together, but she doesn’t want a romantic relationship with him. Rishi is understanding of this and tells her not to worry about it. Dimple then confronts her parents about their plan, telling them that she does not want a romance with Rishi. They tell her just to focus on the program because everything else will work out fine if they do well in school.
Dimple meets Celia, who is also Indian-American like herself, and tells Celia what has happened between herself and Rishi as well as how she feels about it all.
When school starts, the students are told that the person with the best app will get funding to develop his or her idea. Dimple and Rishi become partners for the summer and spend a lot of time together working on their assignments. They’re invited to dinner with Celia’s friends, but they pay for it themselves because they don’t want to be rude. During dinner, differences in class between them lead to awkwardness. Afterward, Dimple and Rishi walk home together after bonding over similar backgrounds; they understand each other in a way others can’t
Dimple and Rishi decide to go to Little Comic Con together. At the convention, Dimple encourages him to talk with Leo Tilden, a comic creator who’s one of his heroes. Later on, they attend a party where Rishi agrees to participate in an art competition against another artist. He shows her some of his artwork that he keeps hidden from most people because it doesn’t fit with his parent’s ambitions for him.
Dimple and Rishi realize they had met before as children at a wedding. They kiss and begin to date. Rishi takes Dimple out for dinner, where he gives her a book that she was reading when they first met. The couple then goes to a viewing point over San Francisco, where Dimple asks to make it an official date and kisses him again.
A talent show is announced, and they decide to do a Bollywood dance together. While they are practicing, Rishi’s brother Ashish comes to visit him on campus and argues with him because he left without his parent’s permission. To calm things down, Dimple asks Ashish to help them with the dance. After that, people discover that Ashish has slept with Celia; Rishi disapproves of it. Meanwhile, Rishi and Dimple discuss having sex together but have not done so yet because Insomnia Con is still going on for another week or so. They agree to continue their relationship long-distance once Insomnia Con ends since they both live in different cities after graduation (Rishi lives in Seattle while Dimple lives in Los Angeles). In addition, she sends examples of his work behind his back to Leo Tilden at her college newspaper hoping he’ll publish it as an article for the school paper.
