What will become of her independence if she chooses to stay with this man who is establishing a life for himself? Milk Teeth is a story of loneliness, belonging, identity, and overall love - and how we’re deserving of it. An intimate exploration of class, precarity, sex, power and, above all, of the fragility and exuberance of love. Where one sense of denial in a socio-economic context is foisted upon the protagonist, the answer is often controlling the only thing one can: one’s body. Ira Kamat and Karthik Kini have been friends since childhood, and are at a point where they have the chance to relook at their relationship.

I could connect with the characters in no time, having grown up with several Goud Saraswat Brahmin friends and clued into their customs.It was so easy to just carry on and on with the reading until, before you know it, the final page has arrived. I know I am not supposed to put my need in you but it spills from my lips and bursts over your body, soaking you in want.

But at the crux of this seemingly sweet matchmaking which has potential of blooming into a possible love story are lies, deception and conflict.Milk Teeth is all about the apprehensions of shedding the old and absorbing the new, be it the new infrastructure, rules, eateries, or even the changed attitudes of the city dwellers. Our unnamed and heartbreakingly relatable protagonist skkkrt-ed through school and it’s webs of appearance guilt, before escaping to the big city of LDN for “new beginnings”. Addressed in second person to the narrator's lover, the writing is gilded with a vulnerable immediacy, blisteringly honest and visceral. The streets are viscous with heat and piss, bodies spilling from doorways, wrapped in sickly tendrils of weed.