What if having it all is not about getting everything? What does it actually mean to have it all? More money? A successful career? A happy family? Good health? Inner peace? Meaningful relationships? Freedom from regret? We tend to imagine these things as items on a checklist. The more boxes we tick, the closer we are to a great life. Gaur Gopal Das’s You Can Have It All made me question that definition. Perhaps the difficult part is not getting more out of life. Per

What happens when a place stops producing gold but refuses to stop carrying its history? That question stayed with me while reading Rabi Samuel’s Cold Mine. Set against the history of Kolar Gold Fields, the novel takes us into abandoned mine shafts, forgotten records, unfinished maps and old legends. But beneath the thriller machinery, Samuel is interested in something larger: what happens to people when the place that gave meaning to their lives also takes something from

Why does a young woman avoid buying a personal product from the family grocer? Why can a Sunday breakfast table in an Indian home look like a tour of the world? And why can a retailer with a deceptively simple business model understand Indian consumers better than companies with far larger resources? These questions are more interesting than they first appear because they point to something businesses often forget: consumers don't always behave as logically as market re

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 something almost irresistible about a young person who refuses to give up on a dream everyone else considers unrealistic. Especially when that dream involves Bollywood. Because Bollywood has spent decades teaching us to believe that somewhere between struggle and success, there will be a turning point. A phone call. An audition. A lucky break. A stranger who notices us. A game show with a life-changing prize. And perhaps that is why Bejoy Chowdhury—Joy—feels so

What would you be willing to give up if you genuinely believed that the one thing you were searching for could not be found in the life you were already living? That question stayed with me while reading If Truth Be Told: A Monk’s Memoir by Om Swami. Because the extraordinary thing about this memoir is not simply that a successful businessman became a monk. It is that the person who had seemingly acquired everything the world teaches us to desire eventually discovered t

There’s a peculiar comfort in leafing through a book that feels like both a mirror and a map. I didn’t expect a book on the Constitution...

Imagine this: it’s late at night, the world outside is quiet, and I promise myself, “Just one more chapter.” You know where this is...