‘While We Wait’ review: On grief, waiting, and learning to begin again

While We Wait is a quiet, emotionally heavy book about grief, healing, and the slow, often painful process of learning to live after life as you knew it has collapsed. Durjoy Dutta tells the story of Aditi and Raghav, two strangers whose lives are upended overnight—and how, in the aftermath of a Brobdingnagian loss, they find themselves holding on to each other because no one else can truly understand what they are going through.

The novel begins at an airport, where Aditi and Raghav strike up a conversation while waiting for their respective partners, Aman and Megha, who, they realise, are travelling on the same flight. Both couples are in similar situations, having run away because their families did not support their relationships.

What starts as a delayed flight turns into a night of waiting, uncertainty, and conversations. When the plane crash-lands with no survivors, Aditi and Raghav are left behind, carrying a grief too large to process alone. With nowhere else to go, Raghav takes Aditi home with him, and what follows is a shared journey through loss, family tensions, and learning how to exist again.

Dutta has a strong grasp on emotional writing, and While We Wait plays to that strength. He writes flawed, complex characters without romanticising their pain or turning grief into something neat or poetic. Aditi and Raghav cope very differently with what they have lost, and the book allows them that space. They don’t fully know who the other was before the tragedy, but the magnitude of their shared loss binds them together. Their relationship is rooted in companionship and understanding, and that is where the book finds its emotional core.

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One of the most effective aspects of the novel is its focus on friendship, both between the protagonists and with their respective best friends, Sumrit and Tejal. When everything else falls apart, it is this bond that keeps Aditi and Raghav afloat. The story is as much about grief and love as it is about finding someone who can sit with you in silence when words fail. Despite their similar circumstances, their emotional arcs are distinct, and the book does a good job of showing how grief never looks the same for two people.

The narrative unfolds through a first-person dual perspective, alternating between Aditi and Raghav. This structure works well, offering insight not just into their individual minds, but also into how they perceive each other. It adds layers to their connection and helps the reader understand the distance between who they are internally and how they appear to others.

What stands out most is Dutta’s writing. His controlled expressions, restraint, and use of subtle, recurring motifs, like tea, anchor the story. The novel explores backstories, insecurities, family dynamics, and loss, yet it manages to bring these elements together without feeling disjointed.

While We Wait is not an easy read. It will make you cry early on, and the ending is emotionally overwhelming in a way that feels earned. It is a story about tragedy, yes, but also about endurance, about how people survive after everything familiar has been taken away. It doesn’t offer easy answers or quick healing, but it captures the long, uneven wait that grief demands, and the fragile connections that make that wait bearable.

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