If you enjoy a cursory wallow in the glittering society pages of tabloids, chances are you’ll stumble on some familiar characters in Ira Trivedi’s rather loftily titled The Great Indian Love Story. That, by the way, confines itself to Lutyen’s Delhi with an occasional detour to Chandigarh and “the Capital’s farm area where Audis, BMWs and Porsche Carreras line every driveway”.

The introduction to Trivedi’s book says she’s lived in nine different cities but doesn’t specify if Delhi was one of them. If she hasn’t, it would explain her fascination for the city’s party circuit that embraces cocaine and single malts, long after the rest of us are jaded by drug tales.

This is a particular odd time for a book that is set after the global meltdown and features decadent youth who one would imagine no longer have the money to live lavishly. Riya, one of the protagonists, finds herself back in India after the crash on Wall Street minus her savings or a job.

After whiling away days in her bureaucrat dad’s government bungalow, she meets Serena at a gym. Then follows a whirlwind of parties with her glamorous new peroxide blonde friend, and a predictable narrative of torrid affairs and roller-coaster relationships. There are a few stirring moments when Riya comprehends the brutality of passion through her friends’ experience, and Serena’s volatile life is nicely highlighted, but hardly enough to make the book memorable.

Clichéd phrases such as “hard and piercing eyes” don’t endear the reader. It’s with a sense of relief that you reach the third protagonist: Serena’s mother, Parmeet, who lives dangerously in Chandigarh, flits between young lovers and a murderously jealous husband. A portrait of the unhappy rich usually makes for easy voyeuristic reading, but, even in India there’s enough of it going around. Serial adultery, coke and debauchery don’t cut it anymore.