Posts from the humour category.
There are some stories that begin after the ending — and somehow feel more urgent because of it. While reading Ever After by Saroor Sarao, I kept returning to a quiet, unsettling thought: what if death doesn’t close anything… it simply removes our excuses?This isn’t a grand, philosophical exploration dressed in heavy language. It arrives in a far more disarming way. A flawed girl. A strange hotel....
Some mysteries begin with a dead body. Others begin with a whisper.Unicorns in the City by Deepti L. Sharma begins with something far more unsettling — a child’s quiet secret.While reading this book, I found myself smiling at the innocence of the moment and yet feeling a subtle unease creeping in. A little girl, Gullu, casually mentions that her best friend’s grandmother has been murdered. But whe...
There’s something different about returning to a writer.The first time you read someone, you observe them.The second time, you listen more closely.Having reviewed earlier work by Bindu Unnikrishnan, I didn’t walk into Spilled Coffee and Some Laughs as a stranger. I walked in with memory. With familiarity. With a quiet expectation of honesty.And this book met me there.Some books arrive like loud an...
There’s a particular sound that echoes through Indian homes — a sharp intake of breath followed by a whispered, scandalised question: Aiyyo… what will the neighbours say? It’s not just a sentence. It’s a mood. A warning. Sometimes even a full-blown philosophy of life. I smiled the moment I opened Aruna Nambiar’s Aiyyo, What Will the Neighbours Say? because I knew, instinctively, that this book und...
The first thing you should know is this: I didn’t intend to laugh at 1:17 a.m. on a weekday. But there I was, trying to be a responsible adult, and suddenly snorting into my pillow because a fictional python named Bertrand decided to make his displeasure known. If you’ve ever had a book ambush your sanity at an ungodly hour, you’ll know the exact flavour of joy I’m talking about. And that’s the pe...
There are days that taste like heartbreak — metallic and cold — and there are days that smell of rain-soaked second chances. The Do-Over by Lynn Painter lives somewhere between the two, looping endlessly in that bittersweet space where pain and hope take turns holding your heart.I still remember my first Lynn Painter read — Better Than the Movies — a warm, quirky rom-com that made me believe in th...
There’s something oddly satisfying about watching chaos simmer — in a test tube or a kitchen. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus captures that messy alchemy of life, science, and womanhood with a spark that refuses to be contained. It’s the kind of book that arrives wearing a lab coat but hides a rebellious smile underneath — equal parts thought experiment and emotional explosion.Bonnie Garmus,...
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 utter...
There’s a certain sound that belongs only to India during election season. It isn’t the speeches or the drumbeats, not even the loudspeakers strapped to auto-rickshaws blaring promises into the summer heat. It’s laughter — wry, exasperated, sometimes bitter, sometimes uncontrollable — the kind that erupts when reality feels too absurd to be real. That’s the sound Amitabh D. Sarwate bottles in Bark...
