By Vikas Datta
Title: The Versions of Us; Author: Laura Barnett ; Publisher: Hatchette India; Pages: 403; Price: Rs.399

Our future is what we make, or is it? Whether we believe in predestination, free will, or random quantum principles, it cannot be denied that our lives and their outcomes are related to our actions - or lack of them. "What if", as a poet observed, are English's saddest words, not by themselves, but by what they preface - missed chances, wasted opportunities and the like. But if our futures are like a crossroad, would we know which way to go? And later, would we be happy with our choice?

It is this eternal dilemma which many times we are not aware of, the tricks that time and fate can play that form the basis of "The Versions of Us", an intricately-crafted, superlatively imaginative debut featuring Jim and Eva whose life paths converge and diverge through their lives for over half a century.

Both are introduced in the brief prequel, dated 1938, detailing the circumstances in which they are born. But the actual story starts two decades later - in Cambridge in 1958 on a darkening October evening as Eva is pedalling furiously to her tutor's and a dog comes in front of her bicycle.

Her next reaction will determine how her life - and of Jim and several others - unfolds in the years to come. In the first, she swerves to avoid the dog and suffers a punctured tyre when her front wheel runs over a rusty nail and Jim, who is passing by, comes forward to help. In the second, the dog moves away at the very last minute and she continues onwards to her destination - and her life with her present boyfriend. And thirdly, she swerves to avoid the dog, disbalances and falls and Jim rushes to help.

From these three scenarios, author Laura Barnett creates another trio of eventualities: Eva and Jim fall in love, she leaves her boyfriend and they end up marrying; in the second, they never meet and Eva ends up marrying her boyfriend; and thirdly, they get together but then Eva goes back to her boyfriend. From this, Burnett presents three alternative cases in various combinations and various stages in their life - together or separate, happy or sad - and with various twists, right down to 2014. In every version, Jim becomes an artist and Eva a writer, though at varying scales of success, and even if they are separate, their paths repeatedly cross.

All the three timelines eventually conflate into one endearingly wistful ending in the present day.

It is an elaborate edifice - a labyrinth with three entrances and mazes - that Burnett, a journalist-turned-writer, has created with assiduous care that each path or scenario stands out from the other. If you are interested in assessing how we ourselves construct the path - straight, crooked, meandering, level, or stony - our life traverses and how easily and unknowingly one can shift from one to another, then this book is for you. You also get three stories at the price of one!