Some books don’t wait politely for your attention — they kick the door open and sweep you into another world before you even realize you’ve crossed a threshold. Circle of Days by Ken Follett did that to me. I wasn’t prepared. One moment I was sinking into my sofa after a long day, absently flipping pages just to unwind, and the next, I was standing barefoot on the Great Plain of prehistoric Britain, tasting dust in the air and feeling the raw ache of ambition and conflict pre

What does it mean to race against time—not metaphorically, not poetically, but in the brutal, breath-snatching, pulse-in-your-throat way where every second could save a life or end one? I asked myself that question somewhere around 2 a.m., sitting alone with a cup of ginger tea gone cold, unable to put Jeffrey Archer’s End Game down. It’s funny how books sometimes choose their own reading conditions: silence outside, a faint hum of the ceiling fan, and a story that refuses to

There are books that arrive quietly, like soft rain tapping on a window. And then there are books like Wellness—that kick the door open, sit across from you in the dim light of a late-night café, and ask the kind of questions you’ve been trying very hard not to look at directly. The kind of questions that feel like staring into a mirror for too long.   What if love isn’t something we fall into once, but something we must choose again and again, even when the magic dissolves a

Have you ever sat in a beautifully lit café, sipping a hot cappuccino, watching plates fly out of the kitchen, servers glide between tables, and thought — How hard can it really be to run a restaurant?I have. More times than I can count. And every time, I’ve wildly underestimated the answer.   Because from the customer’s side of the counter, everything looks effortless — the clink of cutlery, the aroma of freshly baked garlic bread, the hum of conversations blending into the

I didn’t pick up The Art of Focus on a calm morning with incense burning and soothing flute music in the background — although that might have made me look more aligned with the title. Instead, I opened it on a messy weekday evening, surrounded by half-finished tasks, buzzing phone notifications, and a mind that felt like 37 browser tabs open at once. Ironically, I reached for a book about focus while being the least focused version of myself.   And maybe that’s exactly why t

There are some books you don’t read — they read you. They peel you open like an orange, sting the soft inner parts you thought you’d hidden well, and leave you sitting in silence long after the final page has closed. The Bell Jar is that kind of book. I picked it up on a tired Tuesday night, expecting a literary classic with polite gloom, maybe a sprinkle of poetic sadness. Instead, it dragged me by the collar straight into the suffocating hush of a mind unravelling — and I’m

Some books don’t knock gently. They kick the door open, drag a chair into the centre of your life, and say, “Sit. We need to talk about the dream you keep postponing.” The Storypreneur’s Playbook: Fifteen Inspiring Stories to Unleash the Entrepreneur in You by Prateek Roy Chowdhury and Nitin Babel is exactly that kind of book — the kind that arrives like a storm and leaves as quiet clarity.   To be honest, I first heard about this book from a close entrepreneur friend — a wom

There are books you read with a cup of tea in hand, letting the warmth seep into your palms while the pages gently turn. And then there are books that snatch the cup right out of your grasp, sending it crashing to the floor because—what just happened? The Mussoorie Murders by Divyaroop Bhatnagar did exactly that to me. I opened it expecting a quiet weekend read. Instead, I found myself wide awake past midnight, staring at the ceiling, replaying clues like a detective who refu

Some stories don’t knock politely before entering your life. They walk straight in, sit across from you like an old friend, and before you know it, they’ve moved something inside you that you didn’t even realize needed shifting. Whispers in the Mist: Tales from a Himalayan Hamlet by Prerna Dewan was one such unexpected visitor. I began reading it on an ordinary evening, thinking I’d finish a chapter or two before bed. But the moment I stepped onto those mist-draped hills of D

There are books you read. And then there are books that read you. I wasn’t expecting that kind of encounter when I opened The Aware Being Code late one night, intending to sample just a few pages before sleep. But somewhere between the author’s quiet invitation and the mirror it held up to parts of myself I rarely sit with, I found myself wide awake at 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, asking questions I didn’t know I needed to ask. Questions about purpose. About the wounds we

I still remember the first time I heard Piyush Mishra live—his words flowing like a river that refuses to be dammed, each syllable carrying the weight of years, pain, joy, and unrestrained passion. The air itself seemed to hum with his energy, each note and gesture leaving invisible ripples that lingered long after the applause. Holding Tumhari Auqat Kya Hai now, I realize reading this book is like stepping into that same river—letting yourself be carried along, immersed comp

The funny thing about constitutions is that most of us don’t think about them until something shakes us. A protest on the street. A headline that burns our eyes. A conversation that leaves us unsettled long after the tea has gone cold. For me, it happened on a quiet Sunday morning, sunlight spilling across my table, newspapers spread out like a battlefield of opinions—and suddenly, I felt the weight of a question I had never asked myself seriously: Do I truly understand the C

I didn’t ease into When I Hit You — it felt more like stumbling into a scene already in motion. The kind where the camera is trembling, the soundtrack has gone silent, and you realise you’ve entered a story that isn’t waiting for you to settle in. Friends had mentioned how intense it was, but nothing prepares you for the way this book grips your collar and says, “Stay. Watch.” A few pages in, I knew I wasn’t reading for leisure; I was witnessing a life being peeled open.   Me

Some books don’t begin on the first page; they begin in the pause before you open them — in that quiet suspicion that what you’re about to read might just drag you into a world where ambition smells like cologne, betrayal sounds like a sliding boardroom door, and success tastes a little metallic, like fear. The Acting MD 2 made me feel exactly that way. Before I even reached chapter one, I had this uncanny sense that I had stepped onto a tall glass elevator inside Indus City

Some books arrive like history textbooks. This one walked in like an elder at a family gathering — the kind who has lived through storms, celebrated quiet victories, and now leans forward with a twinkle that says, “Let me tell you a story. Our story.” I opened Sanjaya Baru’s Journey of a Nation: 75 Years of Indian Economy expecting charts and chapters. What I got instead felt like sitting across a wooden café table with someone who had watched a nation rise from the dust of c

I launched my first book at 44 My daughter launched hers at 11 — published by Pais Friends Library, Dombivli. And somewhere between those two milestones, I discovered that sometimes children don’t just follow our footsteps… they show us new paths.   That revelation came to me through The Day I Stopped Watching Reels, the debut story by my daughter, Vira Gudhate. When she handed me the manuscript, I expected innocence. But what I found inside those pages was something far more

Some books arrive like old friends. Others enter like sudden winds that rearrange the curtains of your inner room. Chopra’s Abundance walked in like a polite guest with a quiet smile… and then proceeded to rearrange half the furniture in my mind. Not violently — but gently, insistently, the way a truth does when it’s been waiting far too long.   Deepak Chopra, of course, is no stranger to this particular art. For decades, he’s been the soft-spoken rebel of the wellness world

The first thing you should know is this: I didn’t intend to laugh at 1:17 a.m. on a weekday. But there I was, trying to be a responsible adult, and suddenly snorting into my pillow because a fictional python named Bertrand decided to make his displeasure known. If you’ve ever had a book ambush your sanity at an ungodly hour, you’ll know the exact flavour of joy I’m talking about. And that’s the peculiar magic Jonathan Pinnock brings to A Question of Trust — a mystery that beh

I didn’t mean to start this book on a weekday night. I really didn’t. I had promised myself an early sleep, a calm mind, maybe even some music. But books have a strange way of choosing their own timing, don’t they? Escape from Kabul by Dr. Enakshi Sengupta didn’t knock politely — it slipped into my hands like a pulse waiting to be heard. And somewhere between opening the first page and taking the first sip of my green tea, the world around me went quiet. By page three, the te

Some books don’t knock — they slip into your life like a whisper behind your ear. Relics was that kind of whisper for me, the kind that makes you turn around in a crowded café even though you know no one is there. I picked it up on an evening when the world felt a little too ordinary, a little too predictable, and within a few pages Tim Lebbon reminded me why I fell in love with fantasy and horror in the first place — because they crack open the mundane and let a little wild