Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

In my three decades of teaching Economics, I have often felt that the subject as taught in schools, or at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels in India, is almost entirely the Economics of the West, specifically British and American.
Policymakers too are largely trained in the western tradition,

Next, we go back into time with History. Useful words are explained and a brief timeline of World History follows, beginning with 5000 BCE and ending with present-day landmarks. Everything becomes clear, as events fall into place and comparisons of places and people around the world are simplified.

Through the self-professed ramblings of the author, he tells us not only how to stay untouched while daily life carries on with crashes and booms around him, but also unravels the secret to writing. His all-time favourite author, Emily Bronte, wrote in dreary solitude of a house called Wuthering Heights

The changing seasons bring in exciting and subtle changes in the environment round the year. So, a Seasonal Nature Tracker helps record these transformations as we pay close attention to trees, flowers, animals and the weather, all of which have their own seasonal surprises.

Hindi enthusiasts and educators will also enjoy the book as the narratives are written from a deeply reflective point of view. Peeyush writes in the Introduction that the events mentioned in the book are aspects of nature that caught his interest. He describes it as if he had only caught hold of one end of a story;

Through verse, Whitaker tells this remarkable story of Ajay’s relationship with one of the most feared creatures on the planet. His respect, resilience, and dedication shine through, offering children a window into the lives of conservationists who work quietly, tirelessly, and often unseen in our forests.

Although told in fictionalized terms, this narrative speaks to very real conversations and circumstances around the erosion of food diversity and sovereignty.

The translator’s decision to leave words like gundi, mundi, murgi, and naala untranslated keeps the text rooted in its world. This choice reminds us that these stories cannot be neatly relocated elsewhere.

The first occurrence of narrative drawing was in the Delhi Sketch Book in 1850. Inspired by British satirical magazine Punch, it showcased the life of Britishers in the city. Although short lived, over the next two decades, cartoon magazines sprung up in Bengal, Lucknow, Punjab, Gujarat, Lahore and Bombay. These magazines were mildly humorous and usually were a commentary on everyday life.

Ten Indian Traditions of Folk Music that Tell Our Stories is a remarkably written book by Mamta Nainy. What we often call folk is in fact the expressive culture of the labouring classes—their music is diverse, deeply rooted, and profoundly moving. In ten chapters,

‘I bow to you, O sweet Mahalakshmi’ comes with ‘namastastu’ below pointing to ‘bow to you’ (p. 1). In the book Shiva, below ‘O Lord Shiva, you are the lord of the mountains’, an arrow links ‘lord of the mountains’ to ‘geerisham’ below it (p 9). No italics are used, thankfully, keeping the target readers in mind.

Purushothaman’s sensitivity as a writer allows her to zoom out from individual lives and situate them within broader social realities of gender, caste, and community. This wide-angle lens, which acknowledges how both opportunities and constraints shape musical progression,

Recently there has been much debate on the license allowed by the Korean writer Han Kang to her English translator Deborah Smith.

You Had Me at Annyeong! (Annyeong means hello, bye and also peace, depending on its usage) reads like a novelized version of a Korean serial drama very much in the Mills & Boon style.

In a totally different vein is ‘A Chador for the Dargah’—a sweet story about the innocent friendship between a Muslim girl and her Hindu classmate. This story is set in Old Delhi and captures the atmosphere to perfection. In fact, the stories have varied settings.

The book begins with ‘The Narrator’s’ daily churnings at her office where she works as a copy editor and encounters male chauvinism every day at the hands of different characters, from the ‘Chief’, who is the founder of the magazine to his emotionally estranged son, Kumar, who takes over after his father’s death.

Another interesting aspect is the powerful presence of women of different generations in the book and their singular power. There is no powerful or oppressive character, dead or alive; Shankar, the influential panda, comes closest to a male trying to manipulate,

Dr Rupinder S Brar is a cardiologist, writer and poet who lives in California. Quoting Bhamaha, a seventh century poet, he says that his intent with this book was also, ‘… to grasp the nature of the world and all tastes (rasa), one by one…’.

The very title Bloom Again (or Phir Ugna) encapsulates the collection’s core ethos. It is not a nostalgic look at a lost past but a powerful assertion of a cyclical ethic of renewal, re-rooting, and reclamation. Even as poems like ‘Migration’, ‘Civilization’, and ‘Return’ mourn the dislocation caused by urbanization and modernity. The collection collectively gestures toward hope and resistance.

The book carries a poem or two from the random listings of poets cited above. The curation shows scant regard for spatial and/or temporal boundaries. This reviewer would refrain from referring to the collection as a symphony, tempting as the word may be, for while with a symphony each cord, each note is synchronized to meld into a harmonious whole, which is not the case with this delightful little book.