Posts from the history category.
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...
There are crimes so brutal that they refuse to remain inside police files. They become part of a city’s memory. Parents whisper about them to protect their children. Entire neighbourhoods measure time by what happened before and after. The Shadow of Evil belongs to that unsettling category of true crime — not because it glorifies violence, but because it forces us to confront what happens when vio...
There is something quietly revealing about the stories we choose to remember. History celebrates achievements, but the roads leading to those achievements are often far more meaningful than the destination itself. They are filled with rejection, loss, uncertainty, and moments when giving up would have been easier. She Rises: Unfinished Dreams by Hariharan Iyer chooses to tell those stories instead...
Some books arrive carrying more conversations than pages.Long before I knew what Fractured Communities was trying to say, I knew who had written it. That, perhaps, is the strange reality of our times. We often meet an author through headlines before we ever meet their ideas. Opinions are already formed. Sides are already chosen.It made me wonder how often we judge a book before opening it.Once I l...
