Under the stars: A storytelling festival in Udaipur
When you hear the word ‘story’ what comes to your mind? A picture book? An enchanted castle? A bonfire night with your friends, sharing ghost stories? Your grandparents’ voice? A ballad or a poem? Stories has become a near-cliche buzzword today, but the truth, as Yuval Noah Narari says in Sapiens, is that our world […]
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
On a bonfire night after a calamity that mostly scared and did not destroy, an elderly man sat next to me, and without provocation, began narrating the tales of his childhood that were a mix of passion and love, abandon and restraint, exuberance and melancholy. His honey-laced voice, a little raspy, waded with me through […]
Clouds by Chandrahas Choudhury
Mumbai is vast, with more people sailing into it than out. Chances are that two people, in separate corners of this nearly 3-hour-wide city, have similar views, a common thread that could bind them together. Now, a mutual friend thinks that this connection can lead to a lasting bond and introduces them to each other, […]
Book covers have an archival quality and should be designed thus: Shiraz Husain Usmani
You may or may not have heard of him, but you will have heard of the Khwaab Tanha Collective, a visual design initiative that brings Urdu poetry and literature to life. Shiraz Husain Usmani, its founder, emanates that very same poetic streak. His emails begin with a gentle, Hello Prakruti Sahiba and end with the equally graceful Shukriya, with […]
Shiraz Husain: Capturing the death of a monarchy
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about City of My Heart by Rana Safvi, a book about the last days of the Mughals in India. Apart from the rich lesson in history, what caught my heart was its cover, an illustrated red fort, lit with dying lamps, and capturing the essence of the novel […]
All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy
A compass among rows of paints. The cover of All the Lives We Never Lived is enough to draw you in even without its blurb that promises to be ‘a parable of our times’, whose ‘scale is matched by its power’. It’s scale is vast, but its power, not so much. The story begins with […]
Fiction begins where non-fiction ends: Shubhangi Swarup
Speaking to Shubhangi Swarup, like reading her book, is to leave the parochial behind. It is to be inspired to live as fully and engagingly as possible, to push the boundaries of experiences and consciousness. In this interview for onWriting.in, she talks about life during, before and after Latitudes of Longing, the need for novelists […]
Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup
First, there was the beginning of the universe, with two atoms and emptiness. Then, there was the ocean, and a simple dream of a grain of sand created land as we know it. Perhaps in the future, there will be emptiness again, and the universe will end, or be born anew, with two lovers […]
On reading history: City of My Heart by Rana Safvi
This is not a book review. Who am I to judge the past, or what was written of it? I was introduced to monarchy in reverse. First, the death of Princess Diana. Then, the British empire and its Indian occupation. Then, the many emperors and kings who ruled different parts of the sub-continent. Then, when […]
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I Reading Beloved is like swinging really fast, really high. It is thrilling but is sometimes out of your control, sometimes reaching so high that you fear slipping away for a few seconds, and eventually, in the end, you’re back in control, and smoothly ending your ride. It starts powerfully with dedication. “To sixty million […]
