Empire of extraction

By the turn of the current century, a 3-degree rise in a cocktail of temperature and humidity will make life unbearable for at least 3.25 billion people. By that time the monsoon cycle will be completely unpredictable, and glaciers will be viewed digitally. Much would get changed and doomsday models would erect dreadful scenarios. Nothing of the kind may happen, climate change skeptics argue. For such a change unlikely to occur, the world’s governments had agreed to keep global temperature under check from being heated beyond additional 1.5 degrees C.  

Far from mitigating an increase in temperature, the world has already heated up by over 1.4 degrees from pre-industrial times in only a decade since the world’s governments had agreed to keep heating to 1.5 degrees. Recent unprecedented floods across South and Southeast Asia may have been consequent to rise in global temperature. Much worst seems to be in store as the last two years were second or third hottest year on record. Escape from the emerging devastating reality, that is inching closer, is by no means compelling. 

Abrupt changes in climate have acted on the world being molded to serve human needs and desires. Yale University historian Sunil Amrith argues that the human destruction of nature began a long time before the industrial revolution, and which accelerated thereafter. Seeds of such transformation were sown as early as the year 1200. The Charter of Forests, issued by England’s King Henry III in 1217, acknowledged human freedom to exploit natural resources like the soils, forests, and water. Till the advent of industrial revolution, the benign climate and rainfall allowed both imperial and colonial forces to clear land, expand cultivation, and build cities. 

Industrial revolution fueled the energy-hungry economic systems that turned nature into lifeless commodities. The unshackling of fossil energy bolstered a way of seeing the world in which freedom defied any limits on what is possible for human beings to do and to make. The Burning Earth is an environmental history, in author’s view all history is environmental history, that includes both environmental effects on societies and those societies’ impacts on the environment. Taking an appropriately long view the environmental history, which is nothing short of history of the world, the long and continuous struggle for the want and desire has driven a large part of the human impact on the rest of nature. 

Amrith views the three distinct time zones in global history. From such events as the charter that led to wide-scale deforestation; the invasion of central asia and western eurasia by Mongols; and the importation of rice from China are significant global changes. Around the same time, the colonial powers initiated the slave trade which deprived the enslaved freedom as well as their vital links to land and food sources. Christopher Columbus and other Iberian conquistadors brought with them both war and deadly diseases that wiped out most of the Aztecs and Incas. All this led to many habitats vanished and species declined across the world.

All of these events speak of want and greed. Be it extraction of global trade in gold; the emergence of leading financial center; and centuries of fossil fuel dependence. However, the contest for resources increasingly now includes water. Gaining a handle on the planetary crisis is complicated by the fact that the wealthy nations have precious little moral high ground to occupy in making the case that the poorer nations need to stop their clamoring demand for wealth. 

The Burning Earth presents a far-reaching survey of the central role played by human want and desires in the destruction of the planet. As things stand, the human attempt to script and harness nature would grow more elaborate in centuries to come. In this expansive narrative, Amrith narrates how the humans not only transformed matter by taking control of technology but got transformed in return too. It is an epic exploration on human want and desire, leaves the reader with no real clarity on why everything continue to be like that and how things will ever change.  

Written with passion, the narrative is insightful and empowering. Getting slowly sucked into the world of technology; the compelling question remains whether there would be space and scope for freedom and democracy?  

The Burning Earth 
by Sunil Amrith
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 418, Price: Rs.799.

First published in Deccan Herald on March 1, 2026.

The Mughal bazaars were alive

Lot has been written about on the medieval Mughal rule in India in recent years, mostly about the iconic rulers than the ordinary masses. Hotly contested, some see the regime as a benign entity while others as one harmful to India’s long-term development. But by fixating on the king’s actions rather than those of his subjects, much seems to have been missed. Jageet Lally, an associate professor the history of early modern and colonial India, at the University College, London, prisms the business schedule of moneylenders, traders and the related in presenting the dynamic economic life through the Mughal period. To do so, Lally looks through the lives of small trader like the saint Guru Nanak, a failed businessman like Banarsidas and a complaining diplomat like Sir Thomas Roe to weave the daily rhythms of religious and commercial life in that era.    

Through the lived reality of real-life characters of the time viz moneylenders, merchants and middlemen, Badshah Bandar Bazaar examines what has long been taken for granted for the Mughal empire. It identifies the regime as a mighty giant at the apex of both the fledgling markets and expanding ports. It is part of a series of books on The Story of Indian Business that aims to trace the arc of commerce from earliest times, “mining great ideas in business and economics that have shaped commerce.” Despite ups and downs in the Mughal authority, its impact on both local societies and economies remained profound and durable.  

Need it be said that the Mughal power rested upon the state’s ability to set and collect taxes effectively, while ensuring effective spending on defense and expansion of the regime. While day-to-day petty trading went in full steam, the political elite were not disconnected as they depended on participation in rural and urban production cycles in buying and selling. As a result, unprecedented degree of centralization overtly nurtured the state as a mighty hegemon, but in reality, it had a a soft version that made its economy dynamic and robust. 

Interestingly, the day-to-day commercial life had an essential religious element to social life. Religion had a significant role in it. Guru Nanak and his Khatri background influenced trade and commerce during the early Mughal period. Though the guru applied his scribal and accounting skills in his early years before he set off to pursue his spiritual quest, the Khatris remained the core of the Sikh panth in helping expand the regime widen and deepen. The globalization of world economy started steadily after 1500, and with it the shift towards market-oriented production and marketing became relevant. With exotic goods for purchase, and ever more artful ways to make money, businesses became more potent and enticing. Some of the issues addressed in the book resonate powerfully even today. What and how trade expanded and diversified during those times need careful examination from the present perspective?

Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar fuels new life and a fresh perspective into the economic history of the Mughal Empire. fifteen volumes under the series do capture the wide socio-economic-political diversity of the time, the books are no less important for students and others who want to understand how historic currents shaped contemporary realities. The six chapters in the book provide insights on what role trade and business played then and what role it might play in emerging globalization and development of capitalism. 

Infrastructure development for trade and business held the key then, but its relevant even more today. There is much that can be inferred from the historic details. It relates the macro-level political reality with the ordinary lives of people, be it a diamond trader in Surat or a shopkeeper in Chandni Chowk. Badshah Bandar Bazaar draws an engaging connection between the throne and the world of business. The court was definitely above the daily realm of buying and selling, but it wasn’t beyond the ledgers and account books. 

Breaking a fresh perspective into the history of the Mughal Empire, the book takes us on a fabulous journey through its many twists and trails. It not only introduces the empire’s rich but exposes the reader to its fertile countryside. Such times were rich in opportunities and crises alike. All this was possible because the Mughals welcomed the firangis, who dealt with a wide range of economic actors. Their perspectives are difficult to access first-hand, because they left no testimony of their own. Had they been able to do so, they would have rid of some of the pervading myths? 

Badshah Bandar Bazaar is an absorbing study on the kinds of people and pleasures to be found within the Mughal bazaars.       

Badshah Bandar Bazaar 
by Jagjeet Lally
Penguin Business
Extent: 200, Price: Rs. 399.

First published in Hindu BusinessLine on Feb 23, 2026.

Solace from the printed word

The writer has always been an avid reader and a collector of books. But it was a health emergency that made him realize that books have transformative powers.

Books have always kept me company -- during flights, in waiting lounges and in the privacy of a clean toilet. I have never felt lonely in the company of a book. They have helped me visit new places, meet unknown people, and travel to bygone eras. Each book is unique, and each has something different to offer. Indeed, each book, each story, and each character has something to teach the reader.

Collecting books has been a lifelong habit. However, this has resulted in a serious space constraint at home. Still, bookshelves continue to expand at the cost of a shrinking wardrobe. Simply put, they are proud possessions and a new one is added to my personal library every week. I live in a typical middle-class home, one in which books are found in every room. The only rule is that books found in one room should not be shifted to another as space is in short supply everywhere.

But this is not a piece about books as home décor or even as an impediment to it. This is about how books have helped me throughout my life. When I regained my senses after being hit by a paralytic attack in 2024, the first thing I noticed was a book titled One Medicine by Dr Matt Morgan. Concluding that the most time we spend with animals is when they are on our plates, the author suggests that learning how animals survive and thrive be brought into our circle of concerns. At that point my cognitive ability was severely restricted. But I still managed to learn, via the book’s fascinating dive into the physiology of the animal kingdom, that the female kangaroo has three vaginas – two for having sex and one for giving birth.

2025 was a year of recovery for me. During its course, I met many relatives and friends though the numbers shrank as time progressed. Understandably, frequent visits were replaced by convenient phone calls and video chats, which worked as well.

Books, however, maintained their incoming regularity – a book once every week. Since I’m no fan of virtual volumes, I went ahead and kept buying, ending up with about 55 new books in more than 10 genres. They have all been comforting and a few have been transformative.   

My own experience made me think of the devastating accident in Rome in 2022 that left noted writer Hanif Kureishi paralyzed but did not dent his creative zeal. In Shattered, he records his daily ordeal with rare insights from hospital beds in different hospitals, and questions: Why me? Rarely is that question met with a credible answer. Why would it not be you? Though we would like to be acknowledged for our exceptional qualities, it is our ordinariness that comes to the surface most of the time. And this is what leaves us wondering, ‘Who else but not me?’ Though we may be important to one another, according to Kafka, we are not much more than nothing in the universe.

The self, however exceptional, is as best an illusion. Didn’t the Buddha argue that our belief in the self is the root cause of our sufferings? Drawing from ancient Buddhist texts, authors of How to Lose Yourself, Jay L Garfield, Maria Heim and Robert H Sharf, show the reader how to dismantle the notion of the self. I found that it made me forget my own troubles. Yes, physical books smell great, are reliable and informative, and, if you are lucky, are always there when you need them.

And of course, they are always full of information, stuff you never realized you absolutely needed to know before you stumbled upon it in a book. Take the case of the Italian invention once considered an indulgence befitting only the elite that has evolved into one of the most popular mass-market food products ever. In Ice Cream: A Global History, journalist Laura B Weiss embarks on a fascinating journey through the ages to tell the lively story of how this delicious dessert became a global sensation.

Then, there’s The Co-Intelligence Revolution envisions a future in which human ingenuity and artificial intelligence work as powerful allies to co-create ground-breaking innovations and transformed institutions. The book cites the cases of beauty giant L’Oreal and Venkat Ramaswamy, among others, to provide insights on how artificial intelligence engages as both co-worker and coach in generating new processes and products. 

I’ve realized that books on a variety of topics are now essential fodder for me to keep my cognitive faculties meaningfully engaged. I realize that I have been collecting and reading books and reviewing them too for a quarter of a century. Last year, I managed to review 26 books for a range of reputed publications. The neuro-surgeon’s yearly assessment revealed that my progress has been overtly satisfactory. According to the doctor, even in the medical exigency, a positive approach has worked.

Yes, books are essential; I’d say they have saved my life.  

First published in the Hindustan Times on Feb 12, 2026.

Robbed of a childhood

From her debut in 1955, the child artist Daisy Irani acted in over 300 movies. A natural talent with no formal training, she was known for her quick uptake on delivering the perfect performance before the camera. She was most successful and well-known child artist through the 1950s and 1960s – some roles were even written and rewritten specially for her. Daisy was a child star with the short, curly locks, the impish smile and big expressive eyes, for whom the arc lights had become her playground. From Naya Daur (1956) to Kati Patang (1970), she could share screen space with veteran actors Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Vjayantimala and Asha Parekh. 

Behind the Big Screen narrates untold stories of child actors from behind the big screen and delves into the lives of the kids who once lit up the big screen. It explores the joys, struggles, and unique pressures of growing up under the spotlight, The book is as much a celebration as revelation about the young lives consumed under arc lights. Tabassum, Honey, Raju, Khusbhu, Manju, Naaz, Guddu were household names, who alongside many others evoke pleasant memories. Few of these innocent faces were nothing less than a brand.

But the dazzling world of cinema ravaged several childhoods, which to some was a ’never-ending black comedy’. Some felt blessed but many others betrayed. Says late Tabassum, the noted yesteryear child artist: ‘There is no such thing as a child actor. Because when you enter the industry as a child artist, the word child drops off from artist’ life.’ This industry, the Bollywood Industry, has production schedules with limited moral and ethical compulsions, irrespective of one’s age the grilling and grueling remains the same.  

Behind the Big Screen makes compelling reading. The stories swing between opportunity and cost – between glittering fame early in life and to the lifelong scars. Journalists Sunanda Mehta and Suchitra Iyer provide a well-researched narrative on the prevailing ills of the industry and guides what may be correct way to navigate a world basically built for adults. In the makeshift would of cinema, the truth is that the child is uprooted from his ecosystem of same age friends and suddenly pushed into adulthood. Once inside this makeshift world of fiction and imagination, childhood dreams invariably collide with harsh realities.

The book explores the world of child actors and the film industry in its entirety. It doesn’t just skim the surface but examines both the sparkle of cinema and the shadows it casts. It is unfortunate that child rights are not yet formally protected whereas cinema acknowledges animal rights upfront in its credit– ‘no animals were harmed during making of the film.’ With lack of regulations for child artists, it is at the whim of producer-director for making such rules.

The rules of cinema are not strict, have yet to be framed for strict application. As things stand, it is not a rule industry rather still a free for all. Safety on the sets, school attendance, shorter work hours are easy to ensure. Exploitation of kids is an important issue that has yet to be addressed. Child artists Daisy and Honey Irani have openly talked about being exploited, with no one to counsel them as family members are complicit in the crime. When a child becomes a star, the parent-child relationship changes as the child becomes a cash-cow.

There is a refreshing honesty in the way Behind the Big Screen tackles inter-personal and socio-cultural issues. Within the complexity of the issues, the book lightens moments of humor and mischief. The playful memories of on-set pranks, camaraderie among child actors, and the sheer joy of being part of iconic films are insightful reminders. It’s this mix of insight and charm that makes the book such a page-turner.

Behind the Big Screen
by Sunanda Mehta and Suchitra Iyer
Bloomsbury, New Delhi.
Extent: 284, Price: Rs. 599.

First published in Deccan Herald on Feb 8, 2026.

Learning to deal with climate anxiety

If recent tragic incidents across mountain slopes in various parts of the country are any indication, losing sleep at night over uncertain mornings may not be unusual for those who have been dwelling on such mountain slopes, which are now considered vulnerable. Dreadful videos of people and property falling victim to such unprecedented natural catastrophes are nightmarish. People dread physical emergencies like forest fires, landslides and unpredicted floods, but climatic exigencies are no less dreadful with anxiety taking its toll. 

The cause of the imminent change may garner academic interest, be it caused by climate-change or man-made factors, but the climate anxiety induced in the pursuit may make people suffer in many horrible ways. How to think, how to feel, and how to manage stress will depend on what is referred to as ‘individual problems with climate change’ (IPCC). Even then the current crisis to more complicated, tragic, and unjust than we think. 

Dr. Thomas Doherty, a clinical psychologist and mental health therapist, offers a unique perspective about climate change and how should one relate to it, and guides the reader to keep himself equipped with the tools needed for navigation through climatic exigencies. A father and widower, Doherty uses his own life experience, tools, and client stories to help the reader navigate his/her own feelings about climate change and how to take action in a world that is consequentially suffering climate change’s effects.

Another aspect about the book is that it discusses social justice, environmental justice, eco-advocacy, marginalized groups and environmental racism. These are no less important issues, and the intersectionality between all of them is essential to discuss climate change through all levels of advocacy. Doherty also left us with an important reminder that advocacy is needed at all levels—whether front lines or behind the scenes—and our role is so important. 

It is a five-part process, starting with small coping skills, to skills drawn from therapy, to reclaiming happiness, and to taking action. In this book, Doherty promises to help reframe climate anxiety to work for us, rather than against us. It is written with the rare combination of scientific clarity and deep psychological compassion. Rather than pathologizing climate distress, he normalizes it as a sign of moral attunement—a natural response to an unnatural situation. Simple, calm down may not work when anxiety is embedded deep.

Doherty doesn’t think if ‘calm down’ or ‘think positive’ will work in such anxieties. Instead, he thinks to metabolize fear, guilt, grief, and outrage into something usable - into care, connection, and action. In fact, the climate disaster cycle is upon all of us right now; either amid a disaster, recovering from one or anticipating the next. In the words of William Gibson, the harsh reality is that climate-change-fueled disasters are a fact of life now. 

The climatic anxiety in no less prevalent with tragic human stories from different regions piling up. Sita and her family faced storms and wildfires; Jesse and her family were witness to their destroyed homes; there are any number who withstood coastal flooding. Once isolated, such stories are now common for generating sympathetic analysis. Doherty argues that retelling such stories is a way to unburden ourselves from the weights of the environmental transgression people seem to be burden with. 

This book may seem to have been written ahead of its time. But climate change anxiety is one of the biggest mental health threats afflicting growing population, irrespective of its economic and social status. From the geologist haunted by images of melting glaciers to the young couple agonizing over their own survival, Surviving Climate Anxiety provides the tools to cope, heal, and flourish even in such challenging times. This book is different as it is about coping and possibly thriving in the face of climatic change from a psychological perspective.

Ultimately hopeful and profoundly empathetic, Surviving Climate Anxiety is a comprehensive and comforting manual, and Doherty, a competent and benevolent guide. There are moments when the book acts like a gentle reminder to remain both awake and vigilant. If you care deeply about the world and are finding it harder to hold that caring without breaking, this book belongs on your nightstand. .

Surviving Climate Anxiety  
by Dr Thomas Doherty
Hachette, New Delhi. 
Extent: 407, Price: Rs. 799.

First published in the HinduBusiness Line on Jan 3, 2026. 

Is it close to the eleventh hour?

Salman Rushdie needs a new introduction, more so after the fatal knife attack three years ago that had left him blind in one eye. But the writer in him has evolved as an extraordinary imaginative exponent with words since then. The knife incident has given the iconic writer a new identity to stay relevant without repeating himself. It was only a matter of a genius writer like Rushdie that he made positive use of this unfortunate murderous attack on him to explore psychological and philosophical insights on existence.

In contemporary usage, The Eleventh Hour means the moment when it is almost too late. One is therefore advised not to miss any moment to even repent, not later than ten-thirty perhaps. The quintet of stories by Rushdie may seem written in that context, but the outcome is difficult to describe. Isn’t age just a number? Else, ‘why an old man rise helplessly from his chair with his beer in one hand and his sandwich in the other’ in the story The Old Man in the Piazza. It is clear that the old man was witnessed to change, both temporal and generational, but as single person audience only. It is at that age one gets to draw judgement(s) based on insights and experience.

The shadow of death stalks every living being. It is almost involuntary but its realization fuels distinct energy that it reaches a state of wisdom that is close to immortality. The result is open to interpretation. No surprise ‘everyone (else) was experiencing his or her version of the same phenomenon…. before settling back into his/her chair…’ Perhaps, the quintet of stories is Rushdie’s flirtation with ideas that may have eluded his imagination in the past. No wonder, it is a realization now that death and life were always on adjacent verandahs. 

In different ways, the stories are meditations in themselves. The characters are trapped in fateful coincidences, unable to escape the consequences of chance. In the South, Senior and Junior are two characters who are gentlemen neighbors but bicker endlessly. Both would continue to drag the other down to him. As a result, both were too unsteady to trust each other as if trust was a casualty of age. As luck would have it, Junior was sucked in by the dreadful tsunami waves while Senior, who had perhaps asked for death, was left untouched. It made him wonder if life had any meaning other than in the verandah one was occupying. 

In this elegant collection of stories, Rushdie revisits the places that shaped his life and made him what he eventually became. Much has changed in the old places, as these stopped being the old places that these were once known to be. Isn’t it wrong to temper with history? The old name has its inherent relationships to beauty, whereas the new name has more materialistic orientation. Without getting into the nomenclature imbroglio, the author terms his memories as kahani because it gives him a context to write about. The erstwhile city of a certain period comes of age in The Musician of Kahani, rebuilding relationship with an erstwhile city called Bombay. 

The Eleventh Hour is an imaginative parable of the time lived through. Each of the five stories are about how life gets accommodated against death. In Late, the protagonist discovers the remnants of an imperial past by developing friendship with a ghost and pulls out revenge from his tormentor. Oklahoma could easily have been destined as full novel, but Rushdie restricted it as novella and brought in Kafka to build an imaginative/thoughtful narrative. Some or perhaps all stories may seem incomplete, but the writer expects the reader to provide a reasonable closure. Each story has a distinct and engaging plot, leaving the reader to end it differently.   

Rushdie’s spellbound narrative(s) leaves much to the reader’s imagination. Shouldn’t the present ethical decay around the world be a matter of serious concern? Why replacement of ‘knowledge’ with ‘ignorance’ is no longer shameful? In fact, are there not days in which ‘shamelessness’ is king? The stories raise many compelling concerns which neither is anybody listening nor anyone willing to care. The stories, despite their wandering, are a slow-burn of a kind that makes the reader long for respite from emerging realities.

It isn’t clear what we must do now to cut through the crap. Where we are heading and what will become of us? Rushdie, a master of metamorphosis, has conjured up generational concerns for the Gen G to be concerned about. Else, we will remain close to The Eleventh Hour.

The Eleventh Hour 
by Salman Rushdie
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 254, Price: Rs. 899.

First published in Outlook on Dec 28, 2025.

New life into old narratives

With a post-graduate degree in Materials Science from Pennsylvania State University, Prateek Dasgupta took it upon himself to pull ancient history out from the conventional narrative loaded with myths and legends. Not only does ancient past connect forgotten chapters with archaeological evidence, from the Ice Age to the Middle Ages, but celebrate the underappreciated lives of ancient people. It helps conclude that the story of human history in not linear but in reality, is much more complex. 

The common perception that hunter-gatherers began agriculture and started settled habitation, after the Ice Age some 12,000 years, may have been put to rest. Because the earliest known human settlers were called Gravettians who lived in Europe some 57,000 years ago. The term comes from the La Gravette archaeological site in France, that was the systematic production center for stone blades with sharp and blunted edges. This remarkable invention helped those people hunt megafauna, a game changer in human evolution. However, it leaves with more questions than answers. How did humans struggling for survival during the Ice Age excelled in inventing such excellent tools?

Forgotten Footprints is unlike a history book; in four sections it stitches together multi-disciplinary stories that ignite interest and spark curiosity. The stories are independent, allowing readers to dip in where their interest lies. However, the beauty of archaeology is that it helps in rewriting history, and to smoothen the narrative. Written history may have ignored many voices from the past, but the civilizations uncovered in this book provide new insights into humanity’s past, and offer conflicting theories about the why and how did it actually happen? 

Else, it would not have been known that pyramids were first built in Peru. To date, archaeologists have unearthed some 30 sites belonging to the Caral-Supa civilization in the arid region between the Peruvian coast and the Andean foothills. Even pyramids older than Egypt’s 2,670 BCE pyramids have been found in Aspero. Though one may not get to see imposing structures, archaeological evidence does confirm the structure to be located in the center of Caral, allowing society’s elite to monitor the city’s functioning. 

Dasgupta has breathed new life into these ancient histories. History had captivated him since childhood, notable being the headless statue of King Kanishka who ruled much of Central Asia and Northern India from the first to the third century BCE. Although Kanishka is a popular name in India, little is known about this mysterious ruler. The author draws attention on many lesser-known civilizations to understand what political, environmental, and socioeconomic risks these faced. The rise and fall of civilizations remind us of the fragility of modern society, and many of the problems continue to plague even today.

Written in an engaging style, Forgotten Footprints takes the reader across different time zones around the globe. In each of those seventeen chapters in the book, there are interesting human-interest stories worth building and enriching. The author might want some of the chapters to be developed into independent books, to recreate history of ancient civilizations in detail. Liberal use of pictures and graphics gives visual relief to a fascinating subject.     

Forgotten Footprints
by Prateek Dasgupta
Hachette, New Delhi
Extent: 429, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in The Hindu on Dec 21, 2025.

Is ignorance a bliss?

If ignorance is indeed bliss, as Thomas Gray said in Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), a will to ignorance is as strong as any interest in knowledge. Our own experience confirms Aristotle pronouncement that all human beings want to know. However, we seem to be passing through a historical period when the denial of knowledge is acceptable even desired. Centuries after the quest for enlightenment, we now seem to have turned toward the search for ignorance. It’s no wonder then that mesmerized crowds follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds our common sense. In Ignorance and Bliss, historian Mark Lilla offers an intellectual travelogue of the human will not to know.   

A professor of humanities at Columbia University, Lilla’s arguments in favor of ignorance are compelling and insightful. Indeed, he offers an amazing insight into our incorrigible attachment to ignorance. It seems after spending epochs in the search of knowledge, humans are now taking a holiday from reality. No wonder, the resistance to knowledge is now being backed by supportive ideologies. In the face of such developments, those devoted to reasoning have now started to feel like refugees.

Knowledge is power, it is true, but who has as yet acknowledged the power of ignorance that is increasing by the day? Is ignorance without power? Some people are naturally curious about learning why; others, however, are indifferent to it. There are reasons to avoid knowing about particular things, and many of those reasons not to know are perfectly justified. And then there are those who have developed a disinterest in gaining such knowledge simply because they believe that what they already know is the truth.

Lilla provokes his readers to dwell on the subject. The most obvious resistance to knowing is rooted in fear. People often resist any questioning of their morality and religiosity because they fear being exposed. By questioning firm and widely held beliefs, people run the risk of upsetting the ideas that they have built their lives around. This is especially frightening when there is guarantee of any satisfactory replacement. However, if ever questions have to be raised without any chance of them being resisted, it can only happen in a state of total ignorance. So, yes, there are reasons to value ignorance.    

Ignorance and Bliss is all about how ignorance ought to be viewed and how it should be valued. It views ignorance independent of bliss, and for good reasons. In this era when politics is beset by lies and fake news, it is worth asking if the root cause of the problem lies with the public. It would seem that the general public has accepted lies and fake news and its effects too. There is no escape from such a trap. This book then is about the will not to know as well as the desire to remain ignorant.

Gaining knowledge is an emotional experience and resisting it is an emotional one too. How to live with such contrasting emotions is this book’s focus, and our present predicament. The intimate struggles with aspects of self-knowledge feature prominently here. Of course, even self-knowledge depends on resisting other kinds of knowledge about the world. The chapter about fantasy explores that power within us that resist acknowledging reality. There lies a human dilemma that continues to grow and expand.  

Lilla explores several human sentiments like innocence, nostalgia, emptiness, and taboo to gain clarity on the knowledge-ignorance dilemma. That clarity is hard to get because the search for an answer often remains subjective. Knowledge and ignorance co-exist; one doesn’t exist without the other. There seems to be a reason for this: the less we know the more we realize the limits of knowledge. On the contrary, the more we know, the more we are challenged to learn still more. And so, it never ends. And the dilemma persists.

Fascinating and challenging, Ignorance and Bliss make the compelling argument that a will to ignorance is as strong within us as any desire for knowledge. Alas, such are the times that wanting not to know is much stronger than wanting to know. And that way madness lies.  

Ignorance and Bliss
by Mark Lilla
Hurst, New York
Extent:216. Price: Rs 1,765

Published in Hindustan Times on Dec 12, 2025.

Anatomy of survival

Flesh is a rags-to-riches story about a young Hungarian named István. Not too much thinking about himself and his life, the youngster lives an impulsive lifestyle through a series of unexpected mental jobs. Eventually the youngster lands a rich married life in London, with some degree of contentment. During the course of time, a virginal fifteen-year-old enters on a relationship with a married forty-two-year woman. A fight with her husband leads him to juvenile detention and a stretch serving in the military, leading to what seems like an experience with resilience. 

To get a credible sense of his craft, one may need to know David better as a writer. David Szalay is known as a restrained realist fiction with a decidedly international flavor, who shot him into fame for his All That Man Is, which was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2016. Despite the Booker shortlisting, he had published six books but has never quite hit the literary mainstream. Szalay subject matter may look deceptively pedestrian, but he makes it read seemingly big – sex, mortality, money, jobs.

The Booker Prize winner novel by Szalay deals with the nature of István’s pliability, and in a way reveals his naivety. But the protagonist is seemingly alienated from his own bizarre desires and wonders if the character is going through some kind of psychological disorder – marked by clumsy, violating sexual encounters – or has erotic or material desires beyond his control. As the title of the story suggests, Istvan exists in a body that has scars on it and is alive without demanding anything. Thereby, Flesh deals with motion more than emotion. This makes it a difficult narrative that Szalay acknowledges, it wasn’t easy to write as there was immense pressure to cope up with motion-emotion dilemma.

This is an amazing story of a man at odds with himself - estranged from and by the circumstances. However, towards later part of the story the protagonist works as private security and ends up becoming a chauffeur for an elite family in London. As luck would have it, he becomes part of their life, and their exclusive lifestyle. Entering into an affair with the young wife in the household, Istvan ended up marrying her. Life comes full circle with his stepson demanding a life which is under his control.  

Flesh is difficult to read but is a highly engaging and moving book. This is a book about how men may be judged, either for their loneliness or their masculinity. It is an interesting experimentation in style of writing, with its bare-bones prose and the determined turning away from its characters’ inner lives. Neither he nor the novelist tells us that he feels through the many momentous happenings in his life. The narrative gaze in the book is resolutely fixed at the level of the flesh.

At literary level, the ongoing tension between expression and access is clearly evident in the story. The Booker is the ‘leading literary award’, the longlist, shortlist, and the award process have the power to transform writers’ career and the book reach. Nevertheless, questions of diversity, readability, and gatekeeping persist. Larger question remains: when attention spans diminish and people are scrolling, does the award still matter? 

There is something incredibly compelling that the reader returns to this story so often. The story continues to pervade its psychological, social and emotional aspects. Szalay reaffirms that István exists in a body: but lack the courage to articulate his desires verbally. However, István seems most energized during the period of his life he spends at war. When István is asked how it felt to be in the army, to shoot a gun to make people die, he says ‘it's okay’. Does trauma on the battlefield make him realize the immensity of death? 

One could argue that this illustrates the numbing effects of early trauma, or when it is more about the body rather than the mind. It is true that the narrative is at its most vividly analytical when it comes to sex. In the early days of his relationship with his employer’s wife, István notices that the feeling of transgression is intensified but by he doesn’t find her particularly attractive. The writer emphasizes István’s inability to feel. At the end, the reader may feel a little for István, despite all he’d been through.

Flesh is absolutely worth the time – a compelling, unobvious novel by an intriguingly restless writer. This is also a novel about the big question - when the numbing strangeness of being alive is felt and realized.

Flesh 
by David Szalay
Jonathan Cape
Extent: 368, Price: Rs. 899.

First published in Deccan Herald on Dec 7, 2025.

When blind faith becomes a trap

Despite the shadow of financial hardship, a small family with two children tried to create moments of joy. Born to disabled parents, the children found happiness in the little things — simple joys of early childhood and the comfort of shared laughter...

This moving memoir is an unflinching account of how blind faith almost always triumphs over science. It narrates how, in the absence of credible resources and structural support, a family is pulled into the makeshift universe of a self-proclaimed god...

It became a daily struggle to define oneself, to find a purpose that felt real. Over time, the endless chanting of mantras and the repetition of rituals dulled into monotony, draining both energy and hope. Seventeen years under the godman’s shadow shrank their world. Life turned into a long deception — marked by fear, illness, and the absence of accountability. No one was answerable, and that absence of justice became the hardest truth to accept.

The Cost of a Promised Afterlife is, at its heart, a consequence of misplaced trust in a man who prized obedience over well-being. As the book rightly observes, “In a country where cults preside over the cultural, social, and political lives of millions, the writer makes a brave beginning in studying this new religious movement.” 

Told through the eyes of the youngest member of the family, this account is both tender and terrifying. It is impossible to turn away from such an intimate portrait of vulnerability — a family trapped in the whirlpool of organized religiosity, desperately seeking meaning amid manipulation. The story is charged with tension, empathy, and deep compassion, exposing the sinister modern phenomenon of the spiritual business.

When the family faced the death of its matriarch, they were too fragile and too paralysed to trust science. The medically dormant tumor was instead declared a “divine sign,” a sacred proof of spiritual redemption. Rampal’s chilling promise echoed: “All your sorrows will be eliminated hereafter.” The house became a sanctum of fear dressed as faith.

Cults rarely demand instant perfection — they demand unwavering commitment. Rampal was no different. What began as gentle guidance soon hardened into blind loyalty.

The clichés of devotion took over daily life. The lines between faith and duty blurred until nothing was normal. Cracks began to appear in their beliefs, in their bonds, in their once-lovely family. At just 13, the writer was used as a human shield during a violent clash between Rampal’s followers and a rival sect.

Life’s beauty was stolen too soon. With Rampal now serving a life sentence, the family struggles to rebuild, to rediscover a sense of normalcy that feels foreign. For the writer, the pain lingers quietly. She sits by the window for hours, the trees outside her only confidants — silent witnesses to years of suffering. Despite years of sacrifice — falling at the guru’s feet, isolating themselves, obeying his diktats — there was nothing good left to salvage.

Through this raw, personal account, Mehra raises an urgent question that echoes far beyond her own life: why, even in an era of reason and information, do human societies continue to fall prey to such deceit? The roots of this malaise lie deep. When the natural world was once unknown, myth replaced understanding. Saints and godmen became symbols of moral and metaphysical authority. Blind faith, born of ignorance, ossified into social tradition, and then migrated seamlessly into culture and politics. 

Should we continue to live with it, to normalize this cycle of exploitation as part of our cultural fabric? The Cost of a Promised Afterlife is a brave, unguarded, and essential story, a call for awareness and accountability. It confronts the impunity of self-proclaimed godmen and the systems that enable them. It is hard to look away from this testimony of pain, faith, and awakening.

The Cost of a Promised Afterlife 

by Priyamvada Mehra

Simon&Schuster, New Delhi. 

Extent: 305, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in Deccan Herald on Oct 26, 2025.

When water becomes both the lifeline and a faultline

Do rivers have stories to tell? As he prepared to map the Chenab, “a river of diplomacy enshrined in the Indus Waters Treaty”, Danesh Rana was reminded of a Bashir Badr couplet: “Agar fursat mile paani ki tahriron ko padh lena, har ek dariya haazaron saal ka afsana likhta hai. (If you get the time, do read the writing of the water. Every river writes a tale of thousand years.)”

In his memoir and travelogue, The Dark Coloured Waters (Juggernaut), Rana, who has served as an IPS officer in the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir, profiles the river with the help of myths, legends, anecdotes and photographs, including one of the highest railway bridge in the world in Reasi district. He also describes the state of the river post-Pahalgam massacre when India suspended the Indus Water Treaty, brokered by the World Bank in 1960.

“A day after the suspension of the treaty, the sluices at Baghlihar and Salal Hydroelectric Projects were closed,” he writes. Soon, the water receded rapidly, “turning the roar of the river to a whimper,” and people began to walk across the river.

Is it possible to halt or divert rivers? Rivers are the proverbial natural arteries of ecological systems. They are also worshipped, navigated and dammed. From the ancient ecosystems of Egypt to the sinking cities of Shanghai, rivers are valued differently. No wonder, some of our major river systems are also drying, and ultimately dying. Despite such ambiguity, rivers have remained intertwined with humanity.

Water history

A river determines water history in any region, seasonal variation in its flow being the prime determinant. With the bulk of water in the system coming from rainfall and snow melt in the mountains, a river finally flows to the sea to complete its essential hydrological cycle. Of all rivers that have tried to complete the hydrological cycle, the story of the Indus basin stands as one of modern history’s great stories of large-scale environmental transformation. It is also a story of changing relationships between society and the state.

In 2015, Prof. David Gilmartin of North Carolina State University argued that a large-scale environmental history of the Indus basin was yet to be written (Blood and Water, University of California Press). The Indus basin’s history has long been the subject of historical attention. Although a largely arid region, the Indus basin became one of the globe’s most heavily irrigated river basins. Though the flow in the river in the six months from October to March is just 16% of the total annual flow, floods in the summer months have been historically significant.

It is claimed that the Indus basin supplies 80% of the water for Pakistan’s irrigated agriculture – that it employs nearly two-thirds of the labor force and generates a quarter of the national GDP. Such linear relationship has been climatically challenged. Triggered by extremely heavy rains, the July-August 2010 Indus floods affected some 20 million people; 2 million homes were destroyed, 1.6 million head of livestock died and the economic losses amounted to $43 billion. Though the consensus was that it was a-once-in-a- hundred years event, the fact remains that thanks to rapid global warming, a greater climatic uncertainty surely looms.

Floods and irrigation

No message is more powerfully conveyed by the floods’ damage than that massive human development has vastly increased the system’s vulnerability. Together with this, large-scale irrigation projects have become a tool to dominate nature. Erik P. Eckholm had noted in the 1970s that “the greater irrigation works in modern times had come to dramatise the dangers inherent in efforts to expand large-scale control over nature without sufficient attention to the ‘ecological requisites’ of nature itself.”

The Indus basin is not bereft of such transformation or vulnerability, and it is in this light that the river ought to be studied. The Indus Water Treaty was a shared heritage between India and Pakistan, till its suspension in April 2025. Consequently, the future of the water-sharing treaty between upper riparian India and lower riparian Pakistan remains shrouded in mystery (Trial by Water, Penguin, 2025). As per the treaty, the water of the five rivers of Punjab used to flow into the Indus. It may not in future. All these rivers show similar patterns of flow, and their vicissitudes have dictated much of the basin’s hydrogeography. However, all this is going to change if river water is diverted (over time) by the upper riparian state.

At this moment, is it apposite to delineate the fundamental hydrogeography of the Indus basin and its complex flow patterns? How water becomes both a lifeline and a faultline in the contested south-Asian landscape is the lingering question. Under the changing situation, can the river be allowed to flow its course to fulfil its ecological and hydrological obligations of flowing back to the sea to complete the hydrological cycle?

Mounting stress

However, to focus solely on bilateral tensions is to miss the larger picture. “The Indus Basin must be seen as a single, interconnected whole – its challenges not confined to legal frameworks or diplomatic flashpoints but rooted in deeper ecological struggles”. With the basin now confronting surging water demand, climate shocks and mounting water stress, the stakes are only intensifying in the future. Can this decades-old treaty evolve to meet a new era of crisis, rekindling its role as a platform for cooperation?

Rivers themselves have always had their own logic: their natural beauties, their floods, droughts, their tendency to silt up, their changes of course, tipping points and disappearances (Seven Rivers, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025). Rivers have shaped our lives, just as we have shaped theirs. Changing hydro dynamics of the Indus river offers a view of the world where the person and the river, or the person and nature, are seen in relation to each other. Love, grief, and hope flow through the river.

First published in The Hindu on Oct 30, 2025.

The year that it was

Of the 80 Bollywood films released in 1975, only some 15 or 30 reflected the hopes, fears and complexities of the time the society was grappling with. Yet it is considered a landmark year, an evocative, and richly layered transformative year in cinema. But can one calendar year mirror the socio-political and emotional pulse of a changing India? Did ‘angry young man’ reflect the post-emergency disillusionment of the time? Was the genre fusion story telling taken center-stage in telling the uncomfortable truths?

The year was undoubtedly rich in story ideas, courageous scripts and unforgettable artistry. A powerful lineup of films — Sholay, Deewaar, Chupke Chupke, Julie, Aandhi, Nishant — justified the year as a landmark in storytelling, genre fusion, and marketing. The year also brought a remarkable cinematic spectrum by achieving a beautiful balance between commercial hits and artistic milestones. What sets this book apart is its attention to the lesser-discussed but equally vital parallel cinema films - like Nishant, Aandhi, and Mausam.  In his scholarly insights, the author brings the industry's willingness to grapple with uncomfortable truths—be it political disillusionment, patriarchal oppression, or emotional vulnerability. 

In all, 1975: The Year That Transformed Bollywood is an insightful read for film lovers, historians, and anyone curious about the intersection of art, society, and cultural evolution. This period marked a dark chapter in country’s democratic history. The Emergency had far-reaching impacts on all aspects of the society, but its notable impact was on landmark films. The book not only reaffirms the significance of the political tumultuous year but also gently nudges the readers to appreciate and explore the kind of cinema that left a lasting legacy. For films, the year was but a blessing in disguise.

A music enthusiast and a passionate cinephile, Pratik Majumdar contends that 1975 was a turning year in film-making era that reflected the complexities and hopes of an entire generation. In doing so, Majumdar rewinds the reels for the reader to immerse in a time when Bollywood was not only bold but beautiful, and no less brimming with unforgettable stories. Each of the thirty films that have been explored for their narrative strength but also for distinct treatment by the director. From groundbreaking blockbusters to nuanced dramas, directors showcased their creative prowess to have a lasting impact.

Five decades later, many of the stories still hold relevance. It will forever be celebrated for its landmark films for variety and experimentation. In terms of sheer diversity and creative output, the year not only rejuvenated story telling but created space to experiment to suit the evolving tastes of the audience. Perhaps the greatest testament to the year under reference is that it brought the leading actors closer to its audience. 

1975: The year That Transformed Bollywood opens a window into an era where every line of dialogue echoed across time and every frame was musically steeped in passion. 

1975: The Year That Transformed Bollywood 
by Pratik Majumdar
Hachette, New Delhi. 
Extent: 197, Price: Rs. 499.

First published in The Hindu.

A lowdown on the telecom wars

A phone in every Indian’s hand has been an amazing fairy tale. From a single phone in a colony to a mobile phone in every hand has transformed life and livelihood like never before. Not without reason is the telecom sector considered the poster child of the transformation in India, which has replaced the government monopoly with the fledgling private sector.

But former journalist and author Deepali Gupta makes it clear that the story of a phone in every Indian’s hand is a tale of bitter business rivalries and inept government handling, with a whole lot of support actors.

Through analytical storytelling, Gupta brings to light the spirit of innovation in the high-stakes competition that defines the telecom sector. With data and information, the author has woven an absorbing story with a lot of drama and suspense. However, the evolution of the state-controlled monopoly into a private sector oligopoly has its own set of nuances.

The National Telecom Policy of 1999 separated the men from the boys in fueling the telecom war. This led to the rise and fall of many entrepreneurs and one amongst them was Sunil Mittal, who emerged as the champion of champions. This was also the time when the cellular market had started exploding, adding challenges with the information technology equipment and infrastructure.

It is a fascinating account of the evolution of the telecom industry. Though it is based on information available in the public domain, it is a vivid account of the stiff competition between lead players — Tata, Birla, Reliance, Bharati — to capture a lion’s share of the country’s billion voices. It reads like a Wild West story — with corporate rivalries amidst emerging government policies — generating policies in favor of the private sector.

The voluminous book follows a chronological order, which covers all that which contributed to the process of evolution of the telecom industry.

It was in the late 1980s that the country had established the Telecom Commission to guide the Department of Telecommunications, to take forward the setting up of a single service provider for the entire country. It took nearly two years for the government to realize that the country had empty coffers.

But selling a stake nationally to a new private competitor was not considered even a remote possibility. However, the department was learning on the fly to make exemptions and inclusions in rolling out the process.

The political challenges, spectrum scams and the policy reforms were formidable. The voluminous book provides an insightful look into the complexities of the sector.

So much has happened in the telecom sector but what the consumers get to know is the outcome but not the how and why of how it came about. For instance, both Airtel and Reliance Jio have increased call rates at the cost of value-added services

What seems a small increase in monthly expenditure for an ordinary consumer may translate into significant profit for the service provider. What gets counted is the success story of the service provider, at a cost to the unsuspecting consumers.

Given the fledgling consumer base, the gradual increase in cost towards telecom services may seem a genuine concern.

However, the price of mobile telephony and data services in the country are the lowest, without any state subsidy. With AI on the anvil, the sector is likely to face new challenges.

Even if it does, the sector continues to be a business success story.

No doubt, the consumer-interest stories would add a new chapter to the telecom story. Airtel’s famously composed jingle by the music maestro AR Rahman would have got a new tune. The cancellation of licenses, involvement of politicians, and the subsequent series of investigations were all intriguing.

In the first two decades (1995-2015), multiple companies from India and abroad lay claim to a piece of the turf; this gave way later to the powerful few. This part is dealt in detail and is a must-read, as it goes beyond the data to capture human stories that shaped the sector.

Perhaps no one could have dealt with the subject like Gupta. She followed the ins and outs, ups and downs of developments to bring alive the telecom sector. It has all the ingredients of an intriguing story — corporate rivalries, intriguing practices, government policies — which remained dynamic and not uniform. Fast paced and expertly written, Telecom Wars is a primer on a subject.

Elsewhere in the world, too, telecom has been a natural monopoly of the state. But replacing a reluctant government monopoly with private entrepreneurs has been challenging. The book deals with the dos and don’ts of facilitating such a change.

The review was first published in the HinduBusinessLine on October, 6, 2025. 

Why me? But why would it not be me?

Reading books have never been an escape for me. Books instead give me a company - during a flight, in a waiting lounge and in the privacy of a clean toilet. I never feel lonely in the company of a book, however, it encourages solitude for me to attain personal space and tranquility. Books have helped me visit new places, meet unknown people, and travel to bygone era in history. Books should be valued as much because each book, each story, and each character has something to teach its reader. Each book is unique, and each book has something different to offer you and something different to teach the reader. 

Collecting books has been a habit for long, however, reading them got value-addition to the collection during the past two decades only. It has continued ever since, resulting in serious space constraint for housing books. Bookshelves have continued to expand at the cost of shrinking wardrobe. Simply put, books are proud possession, and a new book is added to my personal library every week. It is a typical middle-class home in which books can be found in every room. The only condition being that the books found in one room do not get replaced, as space is not easy to be found elsewhere. 

The first thing I noticed as I got back to my senses after being hit by a paralytic attack was a book titled One Medicine. The author of the book Dr, Matt Morgan concluded that the most time we spend with animals is when they are in our plate and suggested that learning how animals survive and thrive be brought into our circle of concerns. My cognitive ability to comprehend more than a printed page was grossly restricted. Luckily, the book took a fascinating dive into the physiology of the animal kingdom which let me know that the female kangaroos have three vaginas for different purposes – two for having sex and one for giving birth. It came to me as a surprise.  

It has been a year of recovery for me during which I got to meet many relatives and numerous friends. The relatives and friends continued visiting me, but towards later part of the year their numbers shrunk. Rightfully so, as much of it was replaced by convenient phone calls and video chats. It worked no less. But books maintained their incoming regularity – a book once every week. Since virtual books were neither my choice nor compulsion, I got a chance to get as many as 55 new books in little more than 10 genres. Books have been comforting and transformative.   

A devastating accident in Rome in 2022, did leave the noted writer Hanif Kureishi paralyzed but not without any dent on his creative zeal. In Shattered, he records his daily ordeal with rare insights from hospital beds in different hospitals, and questions: Why me? Rarely it ever gets a credible answer. Why it would not be you? Though we would like to be acknowledged for our exceptional qualities, it is our ordinariness that comes to the surface most of the times. And this is what leaves us wondering ‘who else but not me’. Though we may be important to one another, according to Kafka, we are not much more than nothing in the universe. 

The self, howsoever exceptional, is as best an illusion. Didn’t the Buddha, argued thousands of years ago, that our belief in self is the root cause of most of our sufferings? Poring over ancient Buddhist texts, Jay L. Garfield, Maria Heim and Robert H. Sharf teamed together to dismantle notion of the self in their book How To Lose Yourself. Such books listen and make us forget our trouble. Need it be said that books smell great, they are reliable, they are informative, and they’re always there when you need them. 

As one gets exposed to books one learns so much that is both distinctive and fascinating, as well as enriching and exhaustive. If nothing, it helps reflect upon new perspectives and ideas. Once considered an indulgence befitting only the elite, this Italian invention has evolved into one of the most popular mass-market food products ever developed. In Ice Cream: A Global History, journalist Laura B. Weiss takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the ages to tell the lively story of how this delicious dessert became a global sensation. With artificial intelligence occupying center-stage in all that we speculate, The Co-Intelligence Revolution envisions a future in which human ingenuity and artificial intelligence work as powerful allies to co-create ground-breaking innovations and transformed institutions. Citing the case of beauty giant L’Oreal, Venkat Ramaswamy and Krishnan Narayanan provide insights on how artificial intelligence engages as co-worker and coach in generating new processes and products. 

The books on diverse topics become an essential fodder (for me) to keep the cognitive faculty meaningfully engaged. It has been a quarter century of collecting, reading and generating book reviews. As many as 26 books out 55 were reviewed during the year and published in reputed newspapers. The yearly assessment by the neurosurgeon revealed that the progress has been overtly satisfactory. Even in the medical exigency the positive approach towards life has worked its way forward, according to the doctor. Books have played a major role in keeping the cognitive aspect pepped up. 

First published in the Hindustan Times.

An icon who evolved as an institution

Legends are born once in lifetime and so was Dilip Kumar, an icon who evolved as an institution. Vaijantimala, his co-star in seven hugely successful films, had once remarked, ‘The icon’s influence on each generation has been such that there is a Dilip Kumar in every successful actor in Indian cinema’. In the world of cinematic artistry there exists the trail-blazing legacy called ‘method acting’, pioneered by none other than the man who became cinema.  

Dilip Kumar’s method acting brought about a revolutionary change in the portrayal of characters on screen, and with it the very art of film acting. The unforgettable classics such as Devdas (1955), Gunga Jamuna (1961) and Mughal-e-Azam (1960) depict the layers of emotions he continues to evoke in the viewers. Even in the provocative Jab pyar kiya to darna kya number one learns that there could be immense power in silence by the stillness and composure of the character of Prince Salim. His silence was perceived to be more powerful, conveyed a lot more than words. Dilip Kumar’s magic on screen remains undeniable – a legacy that continues to enchant countless millions.

Although the discipline of method acting is attributed to the Russian visionary Konstantin Stainslavsky, Dilip Kumar developed his method as an antithesis to the widely followed classical acting. The method as well as the characters he portrayed carried a strong social bearing. His method was rooted in a kind of cultural rediscovery that helped the character acquire the ability to observe the peculiarities and happenings in society. Employing such cultural memory, Dilip Kumar was able to locate his character in a definite sociocultural milieu. 

Considered the ‘tragedy king’ on screen, Dilip Kumar’s profound commitment to his roles and his deep involvement with the character he portrayed led to serious psychological issues for which he had to consult a psychiatrist in England. The advice given to him was to switch to comic roles. And he did such switch-over with aplomb and poise. In Ram aur Shyam (1967) and Gopi (1970), to name only a few, he displayed his comic sense in well-designed structuring of emotions entirely on a different plane. 

Through the luminous prism of only fifty-seven films, film buff Ashok Chopra could construct Dilip Kumar’s cinematic reach that remains profound, timeless and unparalleled. The Man Who Became Cinema intricately observes the manner in which diverse cinematic characterization as the timeless legacy was interpreted and achieved. Exploring each of his cinematic characters intricately grouped in six different categories – film by film and frame by frame – the author develops an understanding on how Dilip Kumar exhibited his formidable capacity to innovate and improvise.   

Chopra could also unearth the innovative development referred to as the ‘visual verbal personality composite’, through the complex mechanism by which film dialogues were delivered. Dilip Kumar was the only actor to have integrated audio and visual in a scene. What finally gets conveyed to the viewer is not the words and their meanings, but a strange modulation of the sounds of these words by the emotions being conveyed. The author found that was an altogether new cinematic approach.

Such expressions are whispered by the actor when he teases the actress, plays with her and embraces her. In the romantic scene in Aadmi (1968), Dilip Kumar treated his beloved as the beauty and voice of nature. The nuances of this blending of verbal with visual was unique to his style of acting, There is so much to his method that each cinematic frame reveals only a part of it. In his mediation with the audience, Dilip Kumar becomes a memorable vehicle for an intense emotional experience. Such is his method and its range that he lets his co-actors and viewers get cinematic clarity in different roles. 

No wonder many of his films are considered masterpieces to be seen and studied. Before director Ramesh Sippy started work on his film Saagar (1985), actor Kamal Haasan was asked to see Dilip Kumar’s Gunga Jamuna. ‘There are several nuances that every actor should compulsorily watch to understand the meaning of subtlety,’ asserts Kamal Haasan. While it is not easy for every actor to achieve the brilliance that he could but is it what every actor should aspire. It comes as no surprise that Dilip Kumar has not been the most imitated actor, but his acting method is intensely examined and studied. The Man Who Became Cinema is a must-read for film buffs to celebrate the timeless legacy of the cinematic enigma Dilip Kumar.

The Man Who Became Cinema: Dilip Kumar 
by Ashok Chopra
Penguin Ebury Press, New Delhi. 
Extent: 334, Price: Rs. 799.

First published as Premium article in Hindustan Times on September 19, 2025.

A language that refuses to be caged

Renu Behl, author of the story on gender discrimination Draupadi has woken up, reminds the reader that Urdu was and continues to be the language of the land of the five rivers. This is one of the sixteen short stories written by non-muslims in the volume Whose Urdu Is It Anyway, collated to support the argument that religion is not connected to language. And if language gets yoked to a religion, in this case Urdu with Muslim, it does no good to either the language or the religion. 

Ever since Urdu got adopted the official language of Pakistan, it has been considered the language of muslims, or to be more precise, the language of Indian.muslims. But that seems erroneous because Urdu was born out of the cultural hybridization in the Indian subcontinent during 18th century. What we know as Urdu today can be traced back to Turkish, Arabic, and Persian influence, all of which arrived in the country through waves of trade and conquests. It became the preferred language by the masses. 

But identifying Urdu with muslims has political implications although there is no empirical evidence in favor of this relationship. Can language belong to a religion, or can a geographical claim be laid over a language?  Literary historian Rakhshanda Jalil explores the question through sixteen carefully selected Urdu short stories by non-muslim writers to help bust stereotypes and misconceptions. Any attempt at identifying a language with religion is fraught with a cruel denial of heritage.  

Stories by the well-known non-muslim writers, to name a few, like Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Kanhaiyalal Kapoor, Devendar Issar, Ramanand Sagar, and Gulzar speak of glorious diversity of issues in different tones and tenors. The idea of objectively selecting these stories affirm the ‘idea of India’, showcasing that Urdu as a language is alive and that it does not belong to muslims only. Including these short stories, there is a vast treasure of Urdu literature that can still reach the nooks and crannies of popular imagination. 

Whose Urdu Is It Anyway? is a loaded query on a hybrid language that borrowed words from many languages - mostly from Persian – and became the elite lingua franca of medieval India. The evolution of ‘rekhta’ acknowledges Urdu as a hybrid language and seeks to popularize it. Interestingly, such is the trend that there are more people who intend pursuing it orally than those who may pursue it as written language. Urdu following is growing irrespective of its religious identity it locates in the heart of Hindustan.   

Do handful of stories address the question on so-called proprietorship over the language? Rakhshanda Jalil has tried to be objective in selecting stories that remain representative of the time and the people. Most narratives haven’t missed the small person who lived on the margins of public consciousness in eking out a living, and when gender indiscrimination was more of a norm than exception. While most stories are located in the early years after independence when a new kind of nativism was being talked about, and when the fledgling nation was grappling with issues of identity and nationhood. It reminds us starkly of the present times when a similar surge of hyper-nationalism is being witnessed. 

The collection of short stories by non-muslim writers represent the region to which they belong, and not their religion. That’s why muslims in Kerala speak malyalam whereas those in Bengal feel at home in bengali. Not without reason, Urdu is and continues to be language in Punjab. As a region and not as a state. That is why Urdu as a language is not confined to a religion. ‘It belongs to whoever is willing to embrace it and in their capable hands, it is willing to be molded like pliable clay.’

Rakhshanda Jalil leaves the reader take his/her time for the essence of these stories to sink in. After all, Urdu has evolved as a language by the people. It does not belong to any state or religion.  

Whose Urdu is it anyway?
by Rakhshanda Jalil
Simon&Schuster, New Delhi. 
Extent: 180, Price. Rs. 499.

First published in Deccan Herald on September 14, 2025