Posts from the history category.
There’s a particular kind of strength that doesn’t shout. It sits quietly in the soil, in routine, in repetition—like a body learning to fall and rise on the same patch of earth every single day. That’s the feeling that stayed with me while reading Enter the Dangal: Travels through India's Wrestling Landscape by Rudraneil Sengupta. Not excitement. Not adrenaline. Something deeper. Something older....
There is a particular stillness that comes over you when you read about a soldier who never expected to become a legend. Not the cinematic stillness of slow motion and background music — but the quieter kind, like standing before a memorial and suddenly realizing the name on the stone once laughed, argued, trained, worried, and chose duty anyway. That was the feeling that stayed with me while read...
Some books arrive quietly. Others arrive carrying the sound of engines.While reading Wings of Valour by Swapnil Pandey, I found myself thinking not just about aircraft slicing through the sky, but about a pair of grease-stained hands from another era — my father’s.My father served in the Indian Air Force, working on the maintenance of the legendary Douglas C‑47 Dakota. Growing up, I never saw the ...
The moment the hardcover of India’s Biggest Cover-up arrived at my door, I felt a subtle thrill, the kind that comes only with a book that promises to challenge your understanding of history. There’s a tangible weight to it — not just in grams, but in gravitas. Holding 440 meticulously printed pages, perfectly bound, I immediately sensed that this was not a casual read. It’s a book that quietly de...
I still remember the feeling of finishing the first few chapters of Don’t Be That Donkey: A Modern Guide to Outsmarting the Obstacles in Your Way by Amuraj Srinath. I closed the Kindle for a moment, leaned back, and smiled a little — not because the book was comforting, but because it was brutally honest.Some books try to motivate you.This one tries to wake you up.The title itself feels playful at...
There are houses you live in. And then there are houses that live in you.While reading Whispers of the Buried Past by Harshali Singh, I kept returning to that thought. This isn’t merely a haunted-haveli story. It feels more like standing in a courtyard at dusk, knowing something is watching from behind carved wooden doors that have absorbed generations of whispers.The Haveli in Old Delhi doesn’t f...
There’s something unsettling about the idea that six ordinary days can reroute an entire life.Not years. Not decades. Six days.That quiet tension hums beneath Six Days in Bombay, the latest standalone from Alka Joshi, and it caught me off guard. I went in expecting historical richness and atmospheric detail. I did not expect to feel personally confronted by a young nurse’s hunger for a life larger...
I remember closing this book one evening and realising the room around me felt louder than before. The fan hummed. A dog barked somewhere far away. And yet, after Desiccated Land, silence carried weight. This is not the silence of peace. It is the kind that lingers after you’ve heard too much truth at once and don’t know where to place it.David Lepeska comes to Kashmir not as a saviour, not as an ...
Similar to Shantaram, this is a window into a bygone Bombay that i have never known. Delightful read this one - the poetry in the words and the scenes evoke empathy for the characters even when they are at their worst.
There are books you read with a pen in hand, underlining arguments, marking dates. And then there are books you read with your shoulders slightly tense, jaw tight, phone face-down beside you, because the world it speaks of is not safely contained between covers. Toward Armageddon belongs to the second kind. I found myself reading it not at a desk, but late at night, the room quiet, news alerts del...
