During the first two weeks of the year, I made lists of books I loved, and more than once, I found myself writing about how reading levels differ so much that it is difficult to associate a level with an age. Thinking about all of this, I decided write about a reading programme I’ve been […]
West Sikkim
Pelling, in West Sikkim, won my heart. We stayed at a place called Ifseen Villa, about a kilometre and a half away from the one-street town of Pelling. And I loved the place. Outside our balcony were lemon trees, and in the distance, the magnificent Khangchendzonga* range. On each of the three mornings we spent […]
Kolkata Diaries
Excited as I was about our adventures in North Sikkim, I dived in and wrote about Lachung and Yumthang. But the first place we visited was Kolkata. That’s where the journey really started, and we spent a day there because it is a place close to my heart. My grandmother grew up in Calcutta. Having […]
Yumthang Valley
I remember the first time I watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I watched the old movie, of course, where Mr and Mrs Beaver were people in beaver costumes, and the section where the children ride on Aslan was old-fashioned animation, to put it mildly. Yet, I loved it so much that I still remember much of it word […]
The Road to Yumthang
It was a bright, cold day. Bundled up in thermals, sweaters, mufflers, gloves and coats, we set off for Yumthang, famously known as the Valley of Flowers. In spring, a carpet of flowers rolls over the valley, and in winter, a blanket of snow. As we shivered with cold and excitement, we hoped we would […]
North Sikkim
“Should we really go?”“Is it safe?”“Just yesterday, people got stuck in Lachung and had to be rescued!”“And vehicles have not even been allowed to go towards Yumthang.”“Maybe we should just cancel our Lachung-Yumthang plan and stay in Gangtok.” On the 10 January, NDTV reported that over 150 tourists were stuck in the Lachung Valley and […]
Jannat Point, Pench Tiger Reserve
It’s been over three weeks since the year started, and they have been incredible. I have much to write about–my heart and mind are full of stories. I wrote about bringing the new year in with the sight of a leopard at Pench Tiger Reserve, but anyone who loves the jungle knows that a “sighting” […]
The Forest Calls
It was New Year’s Day. We sat in the gypsy, shivering with cold and excitement. There were fewer people in the jungle probably because many had stayed up to bring the new year in, and could not wake up in time for a safari on the 1st of Jan. For us, the whole point of […]
Top Ten: Young Adult Books in 2018
There’s so much happening in the world of Young Adult books! Some people may classify a few of these books as MG rather than YA, but again, I put forth the usual disclaimer – associating an age with a reading level is impossible. Many of these books are crucial – they deal with ideas and […]
Top Ten: Middle-Grade Books in 2018
My list of favourite middle-grade books was the most difficult one to make! Until the second I hit ‘Publish’, I kept changing my mind about which books to include. I almost made this top fifteen – it is my blog after all, no one is dictating how many I should have here … But I restricted […]
Top Ten: Books for Young Readers in 2018
I know that ‘books for young readers’ is a very vague title, but these aren’t all chapter books, though the age-group for all the books on the list is similar. I also don’t read as many chapter books as I do other children’s books, but as I was making this list, I realised that I […]
Top Ten: Picture Books in 2018
It’s when I make lists like this that I realise how many books I read each year. It makes me deeply conscious of how privileged I am to be able to devote so much time each year to reading. Year after year, I read more books. More often than not, I don’t buy them – […]
Invisible People
How does one begin to write about a book as powerful as Invisible People? Stories of hope and courage – that’s what the cover promises, yet I did not expect to be moved as much as I was. I knew I would come across extraordinary stories because I have faith in the fact that there […]
Bhigwan 2018
It was 8 in the morning. We’d woken up at 4:45 and driven over a hundred kilometres to Bhigwan. We waited a long while for our boat, and as we waited, we looked at terns, gulls, storks and stilts around us. And then, eventually, we boarded a boat and made our way across the waters […]
Carthick’s Unfairy Tales
Have you ever thought of Cinderella from the point of view of the mouse? No, not one of the sweet singing mice in Disney’s version. Instead, from the point of view of a hapless mouse who becomes a steed for one night. What happens to the mouse after Cinderella gets her ‘happily ever after’? Does […]
Tilly and the Time Machine
Just thinking about Tilly and the Time Machine makes me chuckle, even though I finished reading it a couple of days ago. It’s been a while since I read such a lovely book written for seven-year-olds. Tilly’s father is a scientist who works for the government. Unfortunately, it seems as if his work is below […]
Unique Flavours
Wanderlust. I write about it so often. Yearning is lovely. But sometimes, the joy of travelling is not in the yearning; it’s in the humour. It’s in the crazy things that happen all the time, all around us. When I travel, I try to eat things that are typical to the place I’m visiting. It […]
Big Books at the Writers’ Club
Aren’t lit fests delightful? Last week, I was invited to St. Mary’s School’s first lit fest, and it was lovely. We walked into books like this one … And we had a panel discussion where we spoke about stories, poems, writing, dancing and music. We then visited classrooms and saw the work the children had […]
The Peculiars
Kieran is one of only two male Reception class teachers on the Isle of Wight.His days mainly consist of singing nursery rhymes, tying shoelaces, trying to locate who has had an ‘accident’ by sense of smell alone, and vast, endless mountains of paperwork. Author profile on Goodreads Aren’t you interested already? Writing good author bios […]
Our Own Voices
I just skimmed through yet another article about how, growing up, we associated ‘white people doing white things’ with ‘people doing people things‘. This is an idea that I have to confront all the time, for racism is everywhere. It has forms that we unwillingly perpetuate too. For instance, I have an Indian friend who […]