Voice of the People
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Abir Mukherjee plots murders for a living, even if he is squeamish about blood. One of the most successful writers of crime fiction, he has spent the last decade on bestseller lists with a historical crime series, Wyndham and Banerjee, set in Calcutta. His new book, ‘The Pinnacle’, turns the whodunit — a closed-door mystery […]
Can a place built for commerce — an artificially implanted company town — ever grow a soul? Can it have roots, rituals, and a heartbeat? In ‘Batanagar’, author Paramita Sen answers this tough question by weaving the two threads of history and nostalgia into a vibrant tapestry. Sen, who spent her formative years in Batanagar […]
I put the book down and gaze out of my cottage window. The forest beyond is fresh and green, the ground is soaked to the bone, and there is a distinct, gentle pitter-patter on my room’s old tiled roof. A streak of gold flashes past in the canopy, and then the air bursts into the […]
What is a memoir? A memory recall, remembrance, life experiences shared with interested readers or a tapestry of a rich, vital life, lived on one’s own terms, a mosaic of turning points, interactions within and beyond the family, or a companionship shared with the universe? All this, and more, is what is mapped in Inderjit […]
How can a society reform itself without repudiating its past? How can it learn from other civilisations without accepting their judgment of its inferiority? Such questions lie at the heart of Bhikhu Parekh’s landmark study of Gandhi’s political discourse. First published in 1989, the updated edition examines Gandhi’s reworking of ahimsa; his dialogue with the […]
There is a particular kind of grief that finds its way into fiction not as plot but as atmosphere, and Indubala Singh’s novel ‘The Haunted Glasses’ is soaked in it. The author’s own note offers an unusual and touching window into its origins — ‘the misplaced spectacles’ that once amused her household became after her […]
‘When asked, ‘What was it like, growing up with Diana?’, my first thought is always, But I don’t know what it was like not to grow up with her…’ Thirty years after Princess Diana’s death, her brother Charles Spencer is publishing a tell-all memoir of his sister’s life. The book, ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister’, […]
In her second novel, ‘The First House’, Avni Doshi follows a woman’s emotional and psychological unravelling after the collapse of her 13-year marriage. The unnamed narrator has built her adult life around her husband, their two daughters and the home they share. When he unexpectedly asks for a divorce, she is forced to confront the […]
Through four generations of the Uppal family, Priya Hajela’s ‘For Whose Dear Sake Our Fathers Died’ explores the complex relationship between Sikhs and the British Empire across a century of war, upheaval and political awakening. Describing the novel as “an attempt to understand this association and co-dependence between the British rulers and Sikhs”, Hajela grapples […]
As the second wave of the pandemic forces lockdowns across the world, an ambulance driver at a hospital in Delhi finds his days and nights taken over by the task of ferrying patients and bodies to makeshift crematoria across the city. He meets the grieving and the depraved, but also, black marketeers hoarding oxygen and […]
Geetanjali Shree refuses to be boxed in and has charted her own course in her novels. It is no different with ‘Once Elephants Lived Here’, a short story collection, newly translated into English by Daisy Rockwell. One short of a dozen, these stories are unlike any other that may exist on the shelves. “I know […]
Rohini Rana is an Indian princess who got married at a young age to the scion of an aristocratic family in Nepal. For years, she traversed the length and breadth of Nepal with her husband, who served in the army and rose to the rank of commander-in-chief. Her collection of recipes is exceptionally rich, ranging […]
David Shulman’s ‘Freedom and Despair: Notes from the West Bank’ captures the everyday lives of Palestinians, where fear and hope oscillate in one of the most protracted conflicts of the last century, which continues to shape the trajectory of their lives as peace remains elusive. Unlike most other works which trace the origins and history […]
Maya Sharma’s over 30 years in Indian television news coincided with the rise, and what could be considered the fall, of this relatively young industry. She was part of the very first batch of trained television journalists in India. As a senior reporter for NDTV’s Bangalore bureau, she covered elections, dramatic political developments, devastating natural […]
How do you solve a problem like Socrates? How do you pen an account of a man whose writing does not survive? How do you write about a philosopher whose works are unavailable but widely quoted, forming the basis of much of Western philosophy? How do you construct the life of a person whom most […]
In ‘Allah Miyan’s Workshop’, a reader is immediately pulled into the warp and weft of Gibran’s ordinary life, which is at once buoyant and crushing. The 14-year-old’s is a world far from easy answers, yet the very innocence of his questions makes the weight of impending tragedy bearable. Hammered by circumstance, he finds refuge in […]
