Some books arrive in your life like a loud motivational speaker with a mic that’s a notch too high. Others slip in quietly, pull out a chair, order cutting chai, and say, “Listen, try this one small thing today.” One Habit a Day belongs firmly to the second category.   I remember reading it late one evening, phone on silent, the house finally exhaling after a long day. No dramatic before-and-after promises. No “change your life by tomorrow” bravado. Just a steady, calm voice

I finished Tumhari Aarshi late in the evening, phone face down on the bed, the room lit by a single tube light that had begun to hum faintly. I remember my shoulders were slightly raised, as if I had been bracing myself without knowing why. When I closed the book, I didn’t move at once. Not because something had struck me dramatically—but because something had quietly refused to leave.   There was a pause. The kind that doesn’t ask for attention.   This book did not arrive lo

There are some characters we inherit, not choose.   Their meanings are handed to us early, wrapped in certainty, repeated until curiosity feels unnecessary. Ravan arrived in my life that way — already concluded, already named, already sealed. Evil was not something to be examined; it was something to be defeated. The story had taught me where to stand long before I knew how to ask why.   So when I picked up this book, I didn’t do so with reverence or rebellion. I came carryin

I closed the book in the late afternoon, when the house had begun to sound hollow again. The kind of quiet that arrives after lunch, when even the ceiling fan seems to turn more slowly. My legs were stretched out. One foot rested against the table leg without thinking. For a few seconds, I didn’t move. Not because I was overwhelmed—but because I felt oddly relocated.   As if I had returned from somewhere nearby that I’d never actually visited.   This book didn’t behave like h

I was lying on my side when I finished it.   Not the dignified, upright posture of a “serious reader.” Just me, the phone slipping slightly in my hand, one knee drawn up, the fan making that familiar uneven sound it makes when it’s been on too long. Evening had already crossed into night. My first thought wasn’t insight. It was quieter.   So this is why my days feel unfinished.   I didn’t think of time. I thought of energy. Specifically, where mine had been leaking without my

I remember noticing my hands first.   They were still holding the book, long after the sentence had ended. Not gripping it. Just resting there, as if letting go would mean admitting the moment was over. The room had begun to dim in that slow, undecided way evenings do—neither day nor night, just tired of choosing. I was slouched, slightly crooked, aware that my body had been still for too long. The first thought that came wasn’t articulate. It was simpler.   I’ve been rushing

I noticed my breathing before I noticed the quiet.   Not the dramatic kind of silence that announces itself, but the softer one — the kind that slips in when the mind stops reaching for the next thing. I was sitting by the window. Late afternoon light. The book closed without ceremony. And for a few seconds, I didn’t feel the need to move.   That is how Fragrances Unseen stayed with me — not as a volume of poems, but as a lingering presence. Like something you smell after som

I remember finishing this book on an ordinary afternoon—and feeling unexpectedly still.   Not the triumphant stillness of motivation, but the quieter kind. The kind that comes when someone has spoken honestly enough that your defences don’t know where to stand anymore. I was seated, book resting face-down, noticing my shoulders had dropped. As if something inside me had been allowed to exhale.   Limitless didn’t rush toward me waving answers. It waited. And then, very calmly,

There was a softness in the room when I finished this book.   Not silence exactly—more like the kind of quiet that follows a memory you didn’t know you were carrying. I was sitting still longer than needed, aware that something gentle had brushed past me and stayed.   The Three Greens didn’t arrive loudly. It didn’t demand attention. It behaved like a childhood afternoon—unannounced, unhurried, and somehow complete in itself. I didn’t enter the story as an adult reader. I sli

The fatigue arrived before the admiration did. Not physical tiredness — something deeper. The kind that settles in the shoulders when you realize how long power has been carried, argued over, bent, and bruised.   I finished the book late at night. The house had already decided to sleep. I stayed back, sitting upright longer than needed, aware of a quiet inside me that hadn’t been there before. Not stirred. Not inspired. Just… attentive.   Some books inform you. Some books imp

I didn’t read Shukriya Boganviliya in one sitting. Not because it was difficult—but because it kept asking me to stop. A poem would end, and instead of turning the page, I would sit there, feeling oddly addressed. As if someone had spoken my name softly and walked away.   Written by Nitya Shukla, Shukriya Boganviliya is a Hindi poetry collection that doesn’t ask for attention. It earns it quietly. Published by Highbrow Scribes Publications, this book carries an unassuming con

I didn’t open this book looking for courage. I opened it expecting information.   What I found instead was a quiet lineage of bravery—lives lived when there were no safety nets, no hashtags, no reassuring headlines saying things will get better. Over The Rainbow: India’s Queer Heroes doesn’t rush at you with noise. It walks beside you, calmly, carrying stories that were never meant to be erased, only ignored.   Edited by Aditya Tiwari, this anthology brings together nineteen

Some books don’t begin when you open them. They begin much earlier—in the life you are already living.   Small Actions, Big Results: 31 Habits for a Supercharged Life began for me somewhere between an early-morning routine I try hard not to skip, a basketball court that still teaches me discipline at forty-plus, a reading habit that once turned into a world record, and the quiet inheritance of values my father left behind—without ever calling them habits.   I rarely pick up s

Some books don’t begin when you open them.   They begin much earlier— in the quiet fears you carry about love, in the endings you never got to choose, in the stories you were forced to leave unfinished.   The Things We Leave Unfinished met me exactly there.   I picked this book up with assumptions. I’ll admit that upfront. I thought I was walking into a glossy, trope-heavy romance—something indulgent, dramatic, maybe even forgettable. Instead, Rebecca Yarros quietly dismantle

There are books you read, and there are books that read you. I didn’t expect that a quiet-looking hardcover with a nostalgic photograph of Mussoorie nestled on the cover would do that to me—but the moment I cracked open Mussoorie Montage: Tales from the Hills by Divyaroop Bhatnagar, I felt something shift. It was like stepping into a fog-thick morning on Camel’s Back Road where everything feels familiar yet charged with the thrill of what might be waiting around the next bend

They say that if you grow up in Maharashtra, Shivaji Maharaj isn’t just a historical figure — he’s a presence. A pulse. A silhouette carved into your imagination long before you even learn to spell “history.” And over the years, we’ve all read countless books about him: some glorifying him into near-myth, some dissecting his tactics with academic precision, some reducing him to a chapter squeezed between the Mughals and the British. Yet, strangely, very few of those books eve

Some books don’t begin when you open them — they begin somewhere inside you, years earlier, with a question you didn’t know you were carrying. For me, it was a dusty memory of a veteran I once met who said, in a voice that trembled just once, “War is a memory you spend your whole life negotiating with.”I never forgot that line. And the day I opened Kristin Hannah’s The Women, it returned to me, like a hand on my shoulder saying, Pay attention. This one is about the hidden neg

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