There is a God, but…
Yes, there is a God, but… the creator of stories is man. So, while we have an entire universe of raw material thrown at us, it is only the human mind that twists it all into a million different shapes. Manu Bhattathiri is one such human who has done a neat job of twisting innocuous...
A Thrilling Dive into a Gathering of Tanka Verses
Words love other words and have that strange magical power to turn each of their get-togethers into duels, sermons, inquisitions, insights, decisions, barbs, directions or whatever else they are asked to do. Sometimes we just let them clump into complex shapes that defy any description and allow them to go on with their search. It...
The curse of Kuldhara – book review
There are suspense and thriller tales that hardly ever let the adrenalin rush subside, those where calculated risks abound and then yet others where the power of the narrative scores. ‘The curse of Kuldhara’ by Richa S Mukherjee has all of these in scattered evenly and, in addition, is also like a delectable mix of...
Happiness according to Naval Ravikant
Why do I wish to talk about happiness and not wealth or building judgement, or rational Buddhism, meaning of life, and any other aspect of values that are so vital for us? All these are painstakingly explained in ‘The Almanack of Naval Ravikant’ written by Eric Jorgenson, a book published by Harper Business. This is...
It is impossible not to fall in love with Poonachi
Unless you have read Poonachi, you will never know how even a goat can make you shut your eyes and sigh. Poonachi, or the story of a black goat is written by Perumal Murugan and even though it is a fable, it leads you right into the heart of nearly every kind of experience that...
Battleworthy thoughts on National security
National security situations that have impacted Indian political thinking on war – both limited and otherwise – and even other security-related challenges need not just an unbiased retelling of what happened but must also be insightful and courageous enough to express reflections that are not obfuscated by mere political alliances. The book that I have...
A psychiatrist inside the mind
Book reading habits have changed. We have come a long way from being asked to read only textbooks and those that supposedly improved our general awareness. Well, writers of fiction are having a field day, you might be tempted to say. But no, we still have a far mightier market for titles that teach one...
Those who think clearly, listen
The art of thinking clearly needs above average listening skills. One way to develop this skill is to listen to books being read out to you… particularly by people who know how to read well. By the way, even when we read books, our mind pauses other activities and listens carefully… and we call this...
One mind prodding another
Search for books on pandemic and Amazon has page after page listed. There are those that talk about the history of pandemics to those that list out lessons for a post-pandemic world, others go on and on about practical ways to get a healthy lifestyle during a pandemic and then those that have articles from...
The importance of being different
‘I don’t like kindle. It doesn’t smell like a book,’ tweeted a friend, and the words left me wondering if a kindle must really smell and feel like something that it is not. For instance, a book never adopts the smugness of a smartphone, and it doesn’t bother me. Our obsession with making everything seem...
Which way to go?
While on treks even I have often noticed, as did Oorja, the protagonist in ‘Mapping Love,’ the debut novel by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, that everyone is ‘in a hurry although everything around them is slow. They know that they have to make things happen before the sun sets…’ The narrative pace of this book, as...
Love sandwiched between drugs, fanaticism, politics, and patriarchy
I remember when I was posted in Bhatinda, a friendly chemist there near Birla Mill colony told me that he sells tons of Dulcolax. So many cases of severe constipation? I asked. Addicts actually, he replied, and so I realized that drug addiction was rampant in those parts of Malwa region in Punjab. This happened...
