There is something almost absurd about a life being reduced to ten inches. Twenty-two years of pouring tea. Twenty-two years of knowing who wants extra ginger, who will pay tomorrow, who needs a cup on credit, who comes to the cart simply because there is nowhere else to go. Then someone draws a chalk line on the pavement and decides that those ten inches matter more. That is where Shekhar Nerala’s Ten Inches: A Novel of Bada Shehar begins to become interesting. When a Tea Ca

We often think we know a place because we know its address. We know the roads. We know the buildings. We know where to get tea. We know which corner is crowded in the evening. We know where people walk, where children play and where politicians once stood behind microphones. But knowing a place is not the same as knowing its memory. That distinction is at the heart of Shanta Gokhale’s Shivaji Park – Dadar 28: History, Places, People. And perhaps that is why this book

There is a particular kind of guilt that doesn't arrive with an accusation. It arrives disguised as concern. “Are you eating too much?” “You should lose some weight.” “You're getting too ambitious.” “Don't you think you should spend more time with the family?” “Why are you so sensitive?” And because the person saying it is often an aunt, a parent, a colleague, a friend—or simply someone who believes they are entitled to an opinion—we are expected to accept it as

I have always found something slightly unsettling about telephone calls. Maybe it is because you cannot see the person on the other end. You hear a voice, but you don't know what the face behind it looks like. You cannot tell whether someone is speaking calmly because they are genuinely calm, or because they are trying very hard not to fall apart. Sometimes there is a pause. Sometimes there is silence. And sometimes, you realise that the person on the other end may

Have you ever stumbled across an old letter in a drawer—creases soft with time, ink fading, but the emotions inside still startlingly...

Imagine this: you pick up a book thinking it’ll be another doctor’s memoir — maybe filled with medical jargon, some predictable patient...