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Book Box: A masterclass in cockroaches

India, July 26 -- Dear Reader, I want to write about protest poetry, about protest memes and protest satire. About the power of words, and about naming that-which-should-not-be-named. All week at ho... Read More


Book Box: Anna Karenina to Na Hanyate: Who gets to tell a marriage story?

India, July 19 -- Dear Reader, I am angry. And disturbed. In my head, a million thoughts buzz. Ahead of me is a red traffic light. Buses, cars, autos. A food-delivery man squeezes his scooter through... Read More


Book Box: How not to tell a story

India, July 12 -- Dear Reader, The best part of returning to Mumbai, apart from the monsoon rains, is being reunited with my bookshelves. Plus, there are always new arrivals waiting: bags of titles b... Read More


Book Box: Halfway through 2026, the books worth reading and skipping

India, June 28 -- Dear Reader, So, this week, I've read approximately nothing. Okay, maybe a few pages here and there, but nothing that counts. Instead, I've been building bookshelves, actually sitti... Read More


Book Box: The Fathers We Forgive

India, June 21 -- Dear Reader, When I first read Pride and Prejudice, I admired Mr. Bennet. There he was, sitting in his library surrounded by books, urbane and ironic, taking pithy potshots at Mrs.... Read More


Book Box: How to Paint a Tree

India, June 14 -- Dear Reader, In the morning we carry our sketchbooks to Sabali, the coffee shop perched above the river Manalsu. The rains have stopped, the day is clear. All around us are hillside... Read More


Book Box: How to read Taiwan Travelogue

India, May 31 -- Dear Reader, Do you find some prize-winning novels hard to read? Like One Hundred Years of Solitude? I was eighteen years old and staying in my uncle's house, taking Delhi Transport... Read More


Book Box: The death of the author?

India, May 24 -- Dear Reader, Like many writers, I have become obsessed with AI. Give me a piece of recent writing and my brain begins to whir, trying to spot the ghost in the wires. I scan text for... Read More


Book Box: Can you bottle a Goddess?

India, May 17 -- Dear Reader, It's early morning in the forest and I feel a tap on my arm. All around and above me are ancient deodar cedar trees, their sap-green, needle-covered branches rising a h... Read More


Book Box: Cracking the mother-daughter code

India, May 10 -- We are lying on a mattress in the garden, the long grass tickling our bare toes, the mountain sun warming our backs. Ahead of us, up on a deodar tree, a glossy blue-black Himalayan cr... Read More