Posts from the history category.
We like principles when they are free.That may be one of the easiest things about being principled.You can say you believe in something.You can talk about integrity.You can admire people who refuse to bend.But then comes the uncomfortable part.What happens when standing by that principle actually costs you something?That was the question I kept returning to while reading Gauri Grover's The Unyield...
There is a strange privilege in modern civilisation.We can depend on something without ever seeing it.Turn on a tap and water appears.Open an app and information appears.Order food and a complex supply chain disappears behind a delivery notification.Walk into an office and we rarely think about the infrastructure that makes the building functional.The more sophisticated a system becomes, the easie...
There are some books you finish and immediately know what you think about them.And then there are books that leave you sitting with a question.A Republic Reimagined: A New Economic Model for a New Age by Joshua Schmude belongs to the second category for me.I didn't agree with everything in the book.But I kept thinking about one question.Who owns the future when machines begin doing more of the wor...
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...
A crown is supposed to be a symbol of power.But what if it is actually a debt?That was the thought I kept returning to while reading Rajesh Mehta’s Bleeding Crown: Protector of Sivi.Set in 726 BC, long before the familiar chapters of Indian history that most of us encounter in school, the novel takes us into the kingdom of Sivi, where a young prince is expected to inherit not merely a throne, but ...
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 — ...
There are some questions that are asked because we don’t know the answer.And then there are questions we ask because we are afraid of what the answer might mean.Am I a Dalit? belongs to the second category.Vijhay Sundar K.G.’s novel begins in a world where caste is not an abstract idea discussed in textbooks. It is present in families, relationships, social behaviour, humiliation and the choices p...
There is a strange problem with legends.We meet them too late.By the time we hear their names, the transformation has already happened. The doubts have disappeared. The mistakes have been edited out. The person has become a symbol.Parashurama is one of those figures.We know the axe.We know the anger.We know the warrior.But who was Rama before he became Parashurama?That is where Kevin Missal’s Para...
When a Border Separates Two People, What Exactly Does It Fail to Separate?Some love stories are about two people trying to find each other.Dear Zahira, With Love by Sachin NG is about something more difficult: two people trying to remain connected when history has decided they belong on opposite sides of a border.That distinction stayed with me.Because we often talk about Partition through numbers...
It was 2015, just after we had passed out of our MBA college, when we three friends decided we needed a different kind of break. No fancy resort, no new city to “check off” a list—just us, our backpacks, and the mountains. That’s how Har Ki Dun happened.We didn’t know then that this trek would stay with us long after our sore muscles had healed.Stepping Out of ComfortOur biggest concern before the...
