Here I am, living my life looking at the rear-view mirror, driving to the end of the beginning of where I started. My body still hurts. It has been some time since Oorja Chaturvedi has come home; but the wounds she suffered, at the hands of the very people who so aptly named her, cut deep. Her relationship with her father was barely strung together with a few words. But when her mother dies, the woman whose nagging love was both her comfort and her secret hiding place from the world, new grief melds with old bitterness. Reeling from the loss, Oorja decides to come back to India, only to find her estranged father missing. Her search leads her to her grandfather, a man who had lived all his life among books and forest, withering away in his house. As she tries to grapple with her grief for a dying grandfather, she unexpectedly finds love and solace in the arms of a man who inherits her grandfather’s estate. But before she can decide what Anang and her own future together hold, Oorja must first untangle the secrets of their shared past. A quiet gut-punch of a debut, acclaimed filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s novel, Mapping Love is heartbreakingly brave and equally delicate. It is a story that digs its claws into you and doesn't let go, long after you've finished it.

ASHWINY IYER TIWARI is an artist, filmmaker and writer. A gold medallist in Commercial Arts from Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai, she spent over a decade in the advertising world, telling stories for the biggest brands in India and Southeast Asia. She has won several advertising ‘craft’ awards across the world for her layered ideas and in-depth understanding of human psychology at the grassroot level. She directed the critically acclaimed, award-winning short film, ‘What’s for Breakfast?’, ‘Brothers’ and ‘Ghar ki Murgi’ (Taken for Granted). Her first highly acclaimed Hindi feature film, ‘Nil Battey Sannata’ also known as, ‘The New Classmate’ helped her spread the message of ‘education for all’ and won Indian and International gender sensitivity awards. She remade it in Tamil as, ‘Amma Kanakku’ (Mother’s Calculation). Her next movie, ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi,’ a slice of life romantic comedy continued her passion for storytelling won many popular and critics’ awards. With her latest widely acclaimed movie, ‘Panga’, she started an important conversation on sports and motherhood. Making her own path with her simple yet mindful outlook towards life, she is a conscious knowledge researcher, traveller and seeker for life. This is her first book.