I read The River Woman and Other Poems slowly, the way one reads something that does not want to be rushed. A few poems at night. One in the quiet between two tasks. Sometimes just a single page, because the lines had a way of lingering—like the aftersound of water moving past stones long after the river itself has slipped out of view.   Renu Roy’s poetry does not announce itself loudly. It arrives softly, almost tentatively, and then stays. This is a collection that lives in

Some books announce themselves with a thesis. This one arrived like humidity on skin—quiet, unavoidable, already inside the room before I knew it. I was reading, but I was also standing on a riverbank at night, ash cooling, water moving, the world refusing to pause for grief. That opening feeling never really left me. Dhara doesn’t ask for attention. It assumes you will eventually slow down enough to listen.   Bal Krishna Thakur’s Dhara: A Journey of Grief, Continuity, and In

Meri Aankhon Ka Mehtaab doesn’t ask to be read; it allows itself to be discovered, the way calm finds you only after exhaustion has done its work. I came to it out of habit, a few spare minutes, no particular expectation. And then something unfamiliar happened—the noise inside me softened. The world slowed its grip. A gentle warmth settled in, the kind you don’t notice immediately, only realize later that it stayed long after you did.   Neelam Saxena Chandra’s reputation prec

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