Books
The importance of being different

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?

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

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...
If only we weren’t ruled by such idiots

If only we weren’t ruled by such idiots

India and Pakistan may be two different countries now but have a lot in common…. And reading ‘City of Spies’ by Sorayya Khan made me sit back and smile. Yes, of course, like our friends in the neighbouring country, we too often think we are ruled by idiots, we too are constantly killing ourselves, we...
Like having a bisi-bele-baath in Paris

Like having a bisi-bele-baath in Paris

Off the beaten track. Not the way most murder mysteries travel in and out of violence. Well, as Arjun Iyer, the protagonist of this novel might have chosen to express, the book is like having a bisi-bele-baath in Paris. His deeply loyal but irascible, devil-may-care Inspector Munuswamy might pick up some other custom-made analogy or...
A birdwatcher reaching out to the soul of intrigue

A birdwatcher reaching out to the soul of intrigue

A sense of great possibilities, a space to explore and discover, and a world that wins a place in a reader’s world can be transformative enough to not just give us a massive adrenaline rush but also add life to our life. This is how my mind perceives a thriller and this is way better...
My echo, my shadow, and me…

My echo, my shadow, and me…

The unexpected is one super reservoir of joy but it is equally true that the unanticipated sound or a visual that is like a detour from the usual will inevitably trigger fear in us. Like our own shadows that sometimes scare us. Or an echo that seems linked to the unnatural. It is not just...
The war that made R&AW – book-review

The war that made R&AW – book-review

Back in the late sixties and early seventies, the way massive destruction caused by Cyclone Bhola, the trauma of a genocide, and the politically suicidal inactivity of Yahya Khan came together, the creation of Bangladesh should not have surprised anyone. Yes, the outright rejection of his six-point movement for East Pakistani autonomy and the declaration...
Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry – a review

Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry – a review

Seventy-five previously published articles, stories, poems, columns, and excerpts from his books (both fiction and non-fiction) with most having ‘been expanded or updated, or both’ are powerful enough to be more than just snippets of history of things that matter to Indians. Maybe even everyone else around the world. I call these pieces more than...
Conversations with self

Conversations with self

To even try and explain what remains indefinable to many or, at least, has all possible definitions and explanations safely cocooned on a distant shelf that is beyond the reach of many, needs not just writing skills but also an intuitive understanding of things. Attempting to investigate relationships and the struggle ‘to sculpt them to...
Monsters on the screen

Monsters on the screen

Monsters on the screen I was in school when I watched my first horror film and I remember being afraid of darkness even months later. That was also the time when the name Ramsay stuck to my mind as a synonym for horror. This may appear strange but after that experience windows nearly always creaked...
Where passion meets education

Where passion meets education

How many students in these past few decades in independent India use words line zest, excitement, energy, fervour, eagerness, enjoyment, delight, zeal, liveliness, vitality, vigour, and devotion for their teachers and their school days? I am one of those who will say yes, but when we look around and probe hard, the truth is that...