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Ever since I learned that YHM was loosely based off of Manju Kapur's Custody, I was eager to read it, so I bought it from amazon last week and have begun reading it. I'm almost done and totally hooked. Manju Kapur is a great writer and her portrayal of Raman and Shagun is very close to YHM's characters.
Even in the book, the main characters are called Raman, Shagun, Ishita and Ashok Khanna. However, there are also many differences. For one, Ishita is from a poor Punjabi family, a divorcee, and works as a teacher in a slum versus being a dentist. Also, the book's Ishita is a lot meeker and more submissive as a result of her difficult past, and she has no siblings so the hilarious nok jhok of the Iyers is not there. Ashok Khanna is nowhere near as evil as YHM's Ashok Khanna. He is actually pretty sympathetic and experiences momentary guilt for stealing Shagun away from Raman. Shagun is every bit as selfish, uncaring and cold as YHM's Shagun, and Raman is also insecure and becomes hardhearted as YHM's Raman. Raman in the book however is called Raman Kaushik versus YHM's Raman Bhalla, and he too is an only child, so Simmi and Romi do not exist. Raman and Shagun's kids in the book are called Arjun (not Aditya) and Roohi. YHM took Roohi, and her character is pretty similar to YHM's Ruhi though a bit younger. Also, Arjun is nowhere near as cold as YHM's Aditya is. He is a frightened and insecure boy who does not understand why his mother suddenly left his father.
I definitely recommend the book for anyone who likes YHM. I imagined all the actors' faces for the book's characters and found myself relating to them a lot!
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