This blog originally started as Kitaabi Khazana, roughly translated as a treasure trove of books about a decade ago. Over a period of time, while books have continued to take center stage in what I write, I could not contain other aspects of life that I wanted to share. As Tabish Khair wrote in one…
There was a storm brewing outside and I was all alone at home. Suddenly the lights went out… I decided to light a candle. The candle lit one half of the room nice and bright. I screamed in horror when I saw my mother. She had died in a car crash years ago! At least…
Brain Robin Cook 1981 Signet pp. 320 This book reminded me why I started reading Robin Cook in the first place. Medical fiction, fast paced thriller, enough jargon to make me feel just the right amount of ignorant, and what I have come to believe is Cook’s forte even more than fiction- professional ethics. In…
The Last Lecture: Lessons in Living Randy Pausch (with Jeffrey Zaslow) 2008 Hachette pp. 267 The Last Lecture is a set of ideas that Pausch presented in his last address to students, colleagues and family. His resilience, sense of humour and spirit to live are undoubtedly admirable. He has quite deliberately, hidden pearls of wisdom…
Sphinx Robin Cook 1979 Signet pp. 320 This book came as a total surprise. I was so amazed by the first fifty pages that I checked the main plot online several times to see if I was reading some fake copy of the book. Goes to show how much I have categorised Cook’s writing in…
Toxin Robin Cook 1998 PanMacmillan pp. 437 Written in the late nineties, the book covers the important issue of food related diseases. Cook describes, in great detail, the process of preparing patties for hamburgers. The description of preparing ground meat and the way animals are taken and treated in slaughter houses is quite gory. It is…
A new series that has been initiated on YouTube is ‘Do you have a Mathematical Eye?’ The video series, as the name suggests, encourages viewers to understand the world around them through the lens of Mathematics. Dr Haneet Gandhi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Education, University of Delhi, encourages us to find mathematics in…
Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 MacMillan pp. 130 The book is the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I had read that as a child, first the abridged version and then the unabridged versions when I was older. As a child, I used to find the story quite fascinating and the illustrations in books…
Yaad Shehar (Vol 1) (Hindi) Neelesh Misra 2013 Westland pp. 250 I picked up this book purely out of fascination for the author or rather his voice. I used to love listening to him narrating stories. It was quite natural for me to have high expectations from his writing. The book introduces him as a…
This blog post is inspired by a research class I recently attended with professors and research scholars at the Department of Education, University of Delhi. Acknowledgements are due to all of them. ______________________ This is a break in the series on chapter writing. But it has been a while since I wrote I guess a…
