Paro Anand

For the longest time there has been an invisible line, an unwritten rule that prevents writing meant for young readers from straying too far into the unknown and by extension, the ‘unsuitable’. The Other: Stories of Difference by Paro Anand is a collection of short narratives that aims to bring to light the experiences of those who lurk at our society’s margins. Anand dares to take her young adult readers down a dark path to the far reaches of society, which in reality aren’t that far from the realities of everyday adolescent life.


Reviewed by: Tara Saldanha
V.S. Rao

A Telugu author, scriptwriter, and translator, Vakkantham Suryanarayana Rao has more than eighty titles to his credit. The book under review Navagraha Purana is a fascinating chronological account of birth, life and glory of nine planets in great detail. The book, originally written in English by VS Rao has been translated into Hindi by Vai Shankar Murti.


Reviewed by: Ruchi Nagpal
Dr. Narendra Dabholkar

Dr Narendra Dabholkar,…


Reviewed by: Ruchi Nagpal
Abhiram Bhadkamkar

At the outset I would like to congratulate Gorakh Thorat for choosing to translate Abhiram Bhadkamkar’s novel Asa Balgandharva, and not any other account of Balgandharva’s life, which are available in plenty, in Marathi. Bhadkamkar’s account is by far the fullest account of the star-actor’s life in one place, in Marathi!


Reviewed by: Urmila Bhirdikar
Surekha Bankar

While queer theory and practice is a new field of study in India, the form of autobiography, biography, and memoir has come up as a powerful tool for LGBTQIA+ authors. Apart from Tripathi’s Main Hijra… Main Laxmi!, there are books like The Truth About Me by A Revathi, A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi by Manobi Bandhopadhyay, the first transgender principal of a college and Red Lipstick: The Men in My Life by Laxminarayan Tripathi and Pooja Pandey.


Reviewed by: Baran Farooqi
Dileep Chandan

Kaziranga! The very name spells magic. Deep dark forests, filtered emerald-green sunlight, large acres of open grassland, swamps and wetland, and thousands of animals and birds coexisting in celebration of the splendid glory of nature. Spread across over 400 sq km, Kaziranga is home to several protected species of animals: among them the tiger (its largest concentration in the world is found here), the wild elephants, the water buffalo, the swamp deer, many species of birds, and most famously, two-thirds of the world’s one-horned rhino population.


Reviewed by: Malati Mukherjee