I remember the first time I walked through Dharavi — not as a tourist, not as a spectator, but as a quiet observer trying to make sense of its heartbeat. The lanes were alive with motion — children darting between tin roofs, the hum of machines from leather workshops, the scent of wet earth mingling with chai and sweat. Amid that pulse, there was something else too — an invisible current of resilience, a kind of defiant grace.   Reading The Awakening of Dharavi by Atul Arjun

There are some books that don’t just tell a story — they unspool a silence you’ve been carrying within yourself. The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay is one of them. I remember reading it late one evening, the rain tapping against my window like a nervous confession. By the time I closed the book, I wasn’t sure whether it was the rain outside or the one that had started within me.   Madhuri Vijay, in her debut, doesn’t announce herself with fireworks. She arrives like mist — quietl

There are some books you don’t just read — you inhabit them. They unfold like an old photograph album, where every page carries a scent, a story, a heartbeat. I Came Upon a Lighthouse by Shantanu Naidu, with illustrations by Sanjana Desai, is one such book. It’s not a biography, not exactly a memoir, but a feeling — warm, humane, and quietly luminous — much like the man at its center: Ratan Tata.   I still remember the first time I turned its pages on a quiet Sunday morning,

There’s a peculiar kind of madness that only Mumbai can offer — the kind that smells like rain on asphalt, sounds like a thousand horns arguing at once, and feels like hope stubbornly pushing through chaos. Vrushali Samant’s Madness in Mumbai: When Forty Gets Naughty bottles that madness, shakes it up with heartbreak, humour, and heat — and hands it to you with a wink. It’s fizzy, messy, and utterly intoxicating.   Vrushali Samant, who’s known for her sharp wit and eye for em

It began with the smell of old paper. That faint, woody fragrance that seeps into your skin when you hold a well-loved book — the kind of...

There’s a quiet power in watching two lives unfold in parallel — ambitious, demanding, and yet beautifully intertwined. Growing Together...

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The first time I picked up Tales from the Absurd, I half-expected a neat little box of stories where everything had its place, logic...

When was the last time a children’s book made you cry? Not the quiet sting-in-the-eye cry but the kind that makes you stop, put the book...

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There’s a certain sound that belongs only to India during election season. It isn’t the speeches or the drumbeats, not even the...

I’ll tell you where I was when I opened Sach Kahun Toh. Midnight. Rain outside. My bedside lamp spilling that warm amber glow across the...

When I closed the book, it felt less like shutting a Kindle and more like slamming shut a courtroom door echoing with unanswered...

Reading A Grain of Sand felt less like turning pages and more like hearing a temple bell in the middle of an ordinary day—sudden,...

Last night, I found myself grinning at a plate of hot chapatis on the dinner table, and I’ll tell you why. I had just finished Tales...

Have you ever had a conversation that left you lighter, as if someone had quietly rearranged the furniture of your thoughts? That’s...

I’ll admit it—I’m a skeptic when it comes to self-help books. Too many of them blur into one another, offering quick-fix formulas or...

Last week, on one of those restless evenings when scrolling endlessly on my phone wasn’t enough and I craved something more nourishing, I...

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...

You know those moments when you stumble on a book that doesn’t just tell a story, but makes you look at the world around you differently?...