The Paths We Choose  is a coming-of-age novel about the disparate paths taken by two sisters in times of unrest and revolution. The book opens with Sumnima and Rita running through a mango orchard, looking to steal the first mangoes of the season, striking a note of idyllic innocence. Sumnima and Rita are cousins but as close as siblings, living in the same house with their mothers in Rato Mato, a village nestled in the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal. Monica Rana tells us this story from the perspective of 14-year-old Rita, the younger, more reticent cousin who follows around the braver, stronger and vivacious Sumnima. Rana establishes the dynamic between the cousins right from the book’s first line, “It had been Sumnima’s idea to steal the mangoes. Everything of any real consequence always seemed to be Sumnima’s idea.” The initial chapters give us a glimpse into their daily lives. Their mothers work hard in the fields and at home, while Sumnima and Rita help out with chores in addition to attending school. They lead a simple but hard life with no room for comfort, so much so that Rita wishes for a pair of slippers with thick, rubber soles but knows that they’ll never materialise. Scarcity is an inescapable fact of life for them and yet, they dream of better times.   The novel picks up pace after Rita finds herself in Kathmandu, separated by strife and circumstances, from Sumnima, her family and the life she’s known. In this new place, Rita discovers courage while manoeuvring splintered loyalties and the forked roads of right and wrong. Accustomed to living in Sumnima’s shadow, Rita is a hesitant heroine. Gradually, and with encouragement from unexpected quarters, she comes into her own, though not without a stumble or two along the way.  The use of simple yet lyrical language makes The Paths We Choose  smooth reading while the use of local Nepalese words lends the writing an earthiness without feeling performatively ethnic. The novel's pacing too keeps the reader engaged. In terms of imagery, the symbol that is writ largest over this book, quite literally, is that of a parrot. It even made it to the cover! There are multiple references to an allegorical poem ‘Pijarako Suga’, the Caged Parrot penned by Lekhnath Paudyal in 1917. The parrot in the poem is a symbol for the Nepalese people who wanted freedom from hereditary dictatorship. This symbolic parrot pops up every few pages, in different forms and stands in for the many hues of freedom—political, social and even individual where it refers to recognising one’s own potential and purpose. I only wish the symbolism wasn’t so heavy-handed and expositional. There are, however, other lovely touches by Rana such as the idea of inanimate objects absorbing history even as they stand by as silent, impartial witnesses to the fleet-footed passage of time and history. In terms of the novel’s themes, patriarchy is a major one. It's seen most clearly in the pressure exerted on women to carry a load heavier than most men while simultaneously, dismissing women as inferior and wholly dependent on men to have any standing in society. Rana’s characters like Neelam didi, with her ingrained and casual misogyny, proves not just how deep patriarchy runs, but also that its fiercest proponents are often women themselves, justifying their own exploitation and lack of agency. Caste and the pecking order it creates in any setting—rural or urban—is another thread running through The Paths We Choose . In the novel, the city offers a few opportunities to transcend these barriers through education and work. Not that it’s easy. In the Kathmandu of The Paths We Choose , class and power create their own pyramid with the reigning Shah dynasty at its top and the Ranas a step or two lower. The government, viewed from Rato Mato, is largely unmindful of the welfare of the underfed, underdeveloped majority in rural Nepal. It is this inequity that the Maoist rebels are fighting against in the novel. Rana weaves in the Nepalese civil war of the early 2000s and the royal massacre into the story's tapestry, giving a real-world grounding to the choices facing the cousins. The Paths We Choose shows how the most righteous causes can often become a guise for nefarious dealings. Individuals on both the monarchist and Maoist sides are shown siphoning off money to fund their own lifestyles. The descriptions of violence and harm caused to ordinary people, however, did come across as a bit one-sided with the rebels getting the shorter end of the stick. All in all, The Paths We Choose  is a novel worth reading with a message and perspective most welcome for the times we live in.  If you’re looking to curl up with a quick read over the holidays, I recommend you get your hands on this novel . P.S To purchase the novel, click here .

Before the Coffee gets Cold  is a thought experiment about human nature, missed chances, regret and love. It taps into a desire most of us have likely experienced at some or the other point—the wish to travel back in time and do things differently. Kawaguchi introduces us to a small, quaint café with three clocks, each showing a different time. Frequented by eccentric regulars, we’re told that the café keeps unusually cool even in Tokyo’s humid summer. What sets it apart from every other café in the city is one table. Sitting at this table lets one travel to another point in time.  There are, however, some rules to this time travel. One, that when travelling through time, you can only meet someone who has visited the café in the past. Also, you cannot leave your chair and hence, the café while you’re in the alternate timeline. The most important tenet is that regardless of what you do or say during your time-hopping trip, the present you return to, will remain unchanged. This is bound to stump anyone interested in even the rudimentary physics of time travel. However, Kawaguchi makes it clear that his time travel trope leans more towards magic realism rather than quantum mechanics and as such, calls for a certain suspension of disbelief. Another fundamental rule is that you absolutely must return to the present before... you guessed it... the coffee gets cold. ​ The strongest element of Before the Coffee gets Cold is its premise. It makes you relate it to your own life as you read the blurb on the back cover. “If you could go back, who would you want to meet?” In terms of style, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s writing reveals his roots in theatre. Before the Coffee gets Cold reads very much like a play with its single location, limited characters and simple storyline. The book is divided into four chapters each focussed on a single storyline – the lovers, husband and wife, the sisters, and mother and child. Performing them as four acts of a play would be easy work. Focussed on formality and the facial expressions of its characters, Before the Coffee gets Cold  is a slim book with a relaxed pace. On the downside, it’s a quite low on action and engaging dialogue. Kawaguchi’s descriptions are repetitive and the narrative feels rather predictable after the first two stories. None of the characters are even mildly memorable. Additionally, the pre-condition of the present not being impacted by any action taking place during time travel reduces the stakes for the characters because the consequences of their actions are limited. Such low stakes and characters with little depth are hardly a recipe for a page-turner. Another aspect that is hard to ignore if and when it does strike you is that somehow, only female characters end up travelling back in time to make amends. It makes one wonder if this is just a coincidence or the sort of patriarchal mindset rooted in the ubiquitousness of women’s emotional labour which is mostly, taken for granted or occasionally applauded, mostly to encourage its continuance. Don’t believe me? Read the book and see what constitutes a ‘win’ for the female time-travellers and what it requires of them. Before the Coffee gets Cold  probably set off to explore the inscrutable complexity of human relationships and how we spend so much time ruminating over whether we made the right decision, said the right thing or missed an opportunity to say one’s piece. As the incomparable Khalil Gibran put it, "Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost." Sadly, Before the Coffee gets Cold misses the mark. Instead of exploring the nature of regret and the weight of missed moments, this book loses its way and ends up at a café serving nothing weightier than Bookstagram vibes and trite truisms.

Dear Reader, Few things surpass the delight and quiet charm of receiving a letter from a loved one. Nowadays, mail is limited to unsolicited promotional mail from small businesses and financial statements from banks. I can’t recall the last time I received a letter. The occasional birthday cards do still show up, but letters are done and dusted. Such a pity because I adore receiving letters. But then, to be fair, I don’t write any letters anymore either. I don’t know which side of this debate you’re on but I agree with anyone who argues that letters are costlier than a bunch of text messages or a phone call, a hassle to dispatch, call for greater effort to write and take too long to reach their recipients. These are all good points. And yet, if you’ve ever come across an old letter—creased with time, the paper turning yellow, written in a familiar handwriting—you know that it’s a time capsule transporting you to a simpler time when you believed doing badly in the mid-term tests was a matter of some importance. I have a friend who used to write to me letters with doodles of Garfield which, in my opinion, have stood the test of time in terms of artistic endeavour! Our friendship has survived many decades even if the letter-writing hasn’t. There are other friends who wrote me small notes on the back of Dairy Milk chocolate wrappers while there was one who sent me evidence of an ongoing orange peel fight in his dormitory while he was writing to me! In spite of all its drawbacks, letter writing scores over calls and text messages in a few ways. One, it requires effort and therefore, immediately signifies value. To receive a letter means you are cherished. Who’s opposed to that? Another notch in their favour is that letters to family and close friends can act almost as journals, helping you process events and emotions and are signposts of a life lived. There is also the tactile aspect of a letter. It’s something you can hold in your hand, place under your pillow and find in a shoebox years later. You can’t say the same about emails. Writer, journalist and media advisor, Liz Carpenter had a similar view. “What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can’t reread a phone call.” The reasonable requirement to indulge in the purchase of unreasonable amounts of stationery is another perk bestowed by letters on their writers! I love buying stationery and so, letter paper and envelopes used to count as essential goods. Sadly, now that I don’t write any letters, it’s been years since I bought air-mail paper. The gauze-like paper in pastel shades was a favourite of mine. I’m not sure if it’s even available anymore. I admit that letter-writing is only a medium of communication and was bound to be replaced by more efficient forms. However, dig a little deeper and you see that each medium brings its own message, language and vibe. For instance, a letter allows for perspective and a more relaxed, thoughtful mood while texting is often about short forms and getting straight to the point. Not all letter-writing is that different from text messages though. I wrote my first letter at the grand old age of three, on a piece of lined paper torn out of a notebook. It was posted along with my brother’s letter to our father who was away for a few months on a military exercise. My letter was a study in brevity—just half the English alphabet, 2 letters of the Hindi alphabet and the numbers 1, 2, 3. My brother’s letter was a little more prolific with a few sentences thrown in and a demand for a gift. These epistolary masterpieces, dear reader, were saved by our father for their obvious emotional appeal, if not literary brilliance! The age of letters is well-past but I’m hoping against hope for a revival – a Renaissance of the Letterati, if you will. The best way to go about it, I suppose, would be to put pen to paper and get started. But first, let me buy a letter pad! With love, Ninay

We were Liars is a young adult novel about the privileged Sinclair family who spend their summers on their private island, Beechwood, off the coast of Massachusetts. E Lockhart portrays them as the quintessential wealthy American family—blonde, beautiful, and square-jawed—à la Kennedys. The Sinclairs live their lives in the lap of laid-back luxury, with an undercurrent of scheming and grasping for the attention and patronage of the family’s patriarch, Harris Sinclair. This is the sort of family where it is normal to toss out furniture, jewellery, clothes, wedding china and silverware as a way to cope with the end of a marriage. After all, what are art galleries and Tiffany’s for? Granddad and Grandma Sinclair have three beautiful daughters—Carrie, Penny and Bess—known ‘for their cashmere cardigans and grand parties’. Between the three of them, they have seven children, with Cadence, Johnny and Mirren being the older cousins. Along with their Indian-American friend, Gat Patil (who is also the nephew of Carrie’s long-time beau, Ed), they are the ‘liars’ from the novel’s title. Does the epithet of ‘liars’ given to them by Grandma Tipper hint at the unreliability of their accounts? Perhaps. Especially Cadence, since she is the narrator of the story. She tells us she suffered an accident on Beechwood Island when she was fifteen years old. And now she suffers from terrible migraines and can’t recall events surrounding the accident. The subject of what happened that summer is taboo in the Sinclair family. Ostensibly because Cadence’s doctors want her to regain her memory in her own time. The crux of the story is Cadence trying to pry out what really happened that summer. As a result, We were Liars oscillates between the summer when Cadence and her cousins are seventeen years old and the summer of the accident, two years ago. Cadence's mysterious accident is what spurs along this otherwise fairly uneventful book. Apart from that, nothing really happens in terms of plot except conversations about status and money between the adults and some banal chats and pretentious posturing that only teenagers think of as ‘grown-up’. Even that would be okay if there was some character development. Cadence, the protagonist and narrator, is a whiny, poor little rich girl under the impression that giving away things she didn’t work for counts as charity and somehow morally elevated, compared to her mother and aunts who fight over property, trust funds and heirlooms. It’s all quite pretentious and hypocritical especially when she casually makes elitist remarks which prove the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. “One night, the four of us ate a picnic down on the tiny beach. Steamed clams, potatoes, and sweet corn. The staff made it. I didn’t know their names.” Thoughtless elitism like this never seems to strike her as inconsiderate till the great love of her young life, Gat, who is the only mildly interesting character in the book, shines a light on her obliviousness. Their love story has all the theatrical hamminess of most adolescent love stories but I can’t complain given that this is Young Adult fiction. You could say I signed up for it. That said, Cadence, with her constant self-centred whining about her own misery, is hard to root for. And frankly, her melodramatic description of events had me confused in the beginning (while I was still figuring out if it was literal) and rolling my eyes later. Sample this: “Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes, my ears, my mouth. It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.” This passage describes Cadence's father’s departure after he decides to separate from her mother, Penny and move to another part of the country. There was no gun or physical violence involved. Not unless you count my palm slapping my forehead at the horror of this purple prose. Apart from Cadence's melodramatic musings, E Lockhart uses a style that mirrors the immediacy and unstructured free flow of a stream of consciousness narrative. It makes sense given the age, personality and mental state of the narrator. The primary theme of We were Liars is privilege and the corrosiveness of wealth and how it can hold us hostage, even when things look positively rosy from the outside, as it does for beautiful Sinclair family. E Lockhart shows how wealth and forced smiles fill the gaps where relationships and love should have been, perpetuating feelings of hollowness. We were Liars would’ve been a lot more enjoyable if it didn’t rely so heavily on the twist at the end to elevate the story and if its protagonist was less shrill in her unpunctuated self-pity. The last chapters had some traces of self-introspection. If only they had come sooner.

Standing in a queue at the checkout counter, I browsed the rack displaying an assortment of mouth fresheners and small snacks. That’s when I noticed that Happydent, a chewing gum that used to retail for 10 bucks five years ago is now priced at Rs 25. That’s a 150% price rise. I’m sure that beats inflation by a mile. Happydent isn’t the only one hiking prices citing higher costs. Some take less obvious routes to arrive at the same outcome. That’s where shrinkflation, skimpflation and excuseflation come in. These phenomena are not new even though shrinkflation had its moment in the limelight thanks to an ostensibly unscripted remark by President Joe Biden in his 2024 State of the Union address. Biden remarked on how there were fewer snickers bars in a party pack. Politicos snickered (forgive the pun) at Biden’s late awakening to the issue of shrinkflation but frankly, late or not, it’s still an issue for people dealing with an ever-rising cost of living. Let’s break down what each of these terms mean. WHAT IS SHRINKFLATION? Shrinkflation is when a company reduces the quantity or size of a product while keeping the price unchanged. For example, Orbit now sells five pieces of chewing gum instead of six for the same price. The same could be said about a ketchup bottle that looks the same as earlier but contains 20 ml less ketchup, or instant noodles that weigh less. In other words, manufacturers downsize products to offset higher production costs but keep retail prices the same, hoping to trick customers into believing that things remain unchanged. One way to achieve this is to change the packaging in a way that distracts the consumer from noticing the reduction in quantity or by including more air in the package as has been the case with packaged air also known as Lays potato chips! WHAT IS SKIMPFLATION? Skimpflation focuses instead on reducing the product’s quality rather than the quantity while maintaining the same price. This can be done by using low-quality ingredients or cutting down certain aspects of the product or service. Whether it is lower-grade coffee beans blended with Arabica beans being passed off as 100% Arabica or a hotel cutting costs by offering less frequent housekeeping or not providing free WiFi, it all falls under the umbrella of skimpflation. In fact, brands sometimes may even increase prices while cutting quality. So, what you get is the opportunity to pay more for lower-quality goods. This has an added advantage for the company because these products, especially appliances, don’t last as long as they should, resulting in increased demand caused by replacement purchases. That’s planned obsolescence, which is a topic for another post. WHAT IS EXCUSEFLATION? First, it’s a very clumsy term. How about we call it shamflation? That rolls off the tongue a lot easier and keeps the alliteration going. Excuseflation, or shamflation, as I like to call it, is when companies raise prices and blame it on inflation. For instance, as soon as the Russia-Ukraine war erupted, global oil prices sky-rocketed. Indian oil-refining companies, however, procured oil from Russia at lower rates. Fuel prices were hiked regardless, and have remained at roughly those levels ever since. The average Joe continues to pay through his nose while the fat cats purr happily all the way to the bank. BUCKING THE TREND Are there any exceptions to this trend? I’m sure there are, but not too many. A few weeks ago, I watched a report about Arizona Iced Tea. The company’s owner, Don Vultaggio spoke of not wanting to increase the price of their cans despite an increase in the cost of ingredients. Even the price of aluminium used to make their cans has doubled over the years. Photo Courtesy: AriZona Iced Tea Facebook Page Arizona Iced Tea was launched in 1992 and priced at 99 cents. The brand has kept their prices steady for the most part, barring a few variants. They did, however, reduce the size of their cans from 24 oz to 22 oz. But it’s vital to keep in mind that if the price of Arizona Iced Tea cans were adjusted for inflation, those cans should cost $2.30 today. That’s more than double. Keeping the price at 99 cents for more than three decades despite competitors raising prices is no small feat and worthy of appreciation. That its parent company, Arizona Beverages is privately-owned probably has something to do with it. Most companies with shareholders are usually more focussed on boosting shareholder profits than serving their customers. CONCLUSION That’s the story of shrinking products and soaring prices. While there isn’t much customers can do with phenomena as wide-spread as this but being aware of the manipulation is a step in the right direction. Also a good idea is calling it out in person and on social media. #shrinkflation

The Enigma of Room 622 is many things—an homage, a murder mystery, the tale of a boardroom battle, a love triangle and Joel Dicker’s attempt at metafiction. Let’s begin with the prologue. We’re transported to the Hotel de Verbier in the Swiss Alps on a snowy morning in December. It’s early and still dark. A hotel employee makes his way to a guest’s room with a breakfast tray. “On the carpet of room 622 lay a corpse.” With an in medias res opening which places us smack in the middle of the main conflict, Joel Dicker gets off to a great start. The reader is immediately drawn in. What follows is Dicker donning the double-sided cloak of a professional writer and an amateur sleuth. The first chapter opens with how he, Joel Dicker travelled to Hotel de Verbier, a luxury hotel in the summer of 2018 hoping to recover from two recent personal traumas—the death of his publisher, Bernard de Fallois and the abrupt end of a short-lived romantic relationship. His curiosity is piqued by an anomaly in the numbering of the hotel rooms. There is no Room 622. There is 621, 623 and 621A. Some investigative work by Scarlett, a guest at the same hotel and Dicker’s partner-in-crime-solving reveals the cause for the erasure of Room 622—an unsolved murder. The characters populating the world of this mystery are Macaire Ebezner who, in the wake of his father's passing a year ago, is all set to take over as president of one of the largest family-owned banks in Switzerland. All he needs is for the bank’s board to elect him. On the board are Macaire’s uncle, Horace Hansen; his cousin and Horace’s son, Jean Bénédict Hansen and Sinior Tarnogol, a shadowy presence who manipulated his way to a spot on the bank’s board fifteen years ago. The board’s machinations to pick a president and the challenges posed to Macaire’s ascension by Lev Levovitch, the banking wunderkind with secrets of his own are all connected to the murder. In his usual style, Joel Dicker packs The Enigma of Room 622 with a veritable torrent of twists and flashbacks, making his readers work hard for even tiny parcels of information. In fact, it takes about 380 pages of this 563-page novel for the reader to even discover the identity of the murder victim. Talk about unanswered questions! There is no fact small enough to be revealed without a flashback or later, even a flash-forward. It’s bit gimmicky, but addictive nonetheless. I’m willing to bet Dicker has never met a cliffhanger he didn’t like! This is a thriller through and through with plenty of twists, pacy chapters, narrative suspense and foreshadowing. In a way, this novel reminded me of Jeffrey Archer right before he became so formulaic that it became hard to tell one book from another. Dicker, like Archer, knows how to hook his reader and write a page-turner. That’s great but it gets old if you use the same tricks every time. For a fairly long book, The Enigma of Room 622 fails to create characters who feel real and fleshed out. The following lines spoken by Lev Levovitch is a rare moment when his thoughts reveal the beliefs behind his actions. "Because love doesn't exist. It's a mirage, a social construct. Or, if you prefer, love exists only if it isn't materialised. It's a spiritual emanation made of hope, expectation, and projection.” Macaire is the other character whose actions we have some insight into but it’s limited to his ambition to follow his father as president. The focus remains majorly on plot progression rather than character development. Most of the characters operate like plot devices, living only to take the story forward. The most glaringly underdeveloped character is the main female character, Anastasia. Even at the centre of a love triangle, she lacks agency and a mind of her own like a desert lacks precipitation. Frankly, it gets quite trying. In terms of style, I enjoy Dicker’s bringing literary devices into the genre of thriller or crime fiction. That said, I felt like the framing device he uses of becoming a part of the story doesn’t do much for the story apart from being a vehicle to pay homage to his friend and publisher, Bernard de Fallois. That, and giving us a peek into how authors grow stories from the tiny seed of an idea and the easter eggs they often scatter through their manuscript. All in all, The Enigma of Room 622 is engaging but somehow, it lacks the emotional core of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair. This may have been caused partly by characters the reader doesn't root for and in part by the ex deus machina ending sprung on us to explain everything conveniently with some spit and polish.

What’s your idea of a good day? Wait… for all those who will say - laying on a deck chair and sipping fruity drinks, let me rephrase… what’s your ideal day when you’re not on vacation or enjoying a chill day? If you’re like me, it’s a happy mix of productivity, some form of exercise and enjoyable and restful downtime. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But only until procrastination, laziness, lack of motivation and sloppy time management crash the party. The areas I struggle with are ending the work part of my day at a reasonable hour, going to bed on time and being realistic about how many hours there are in a day! At the start of almost every day, I regularly overestimate how much I can get done. It’s a heady cocktail of early morning optimism and daily delusion! Dear Reader, please consider all this information as fair disclosure going into my tips for a productive day. I follow most of these hacks, while there are a few I know I should practise but don’t, and wish I would. GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP For me, that means eight hours between 11 pm to 7 am. However, I’m a reformed night owl who often lapses into her old ways so sleeping on time is a constant challenge. Yet, I recommend it whole-heartedly because it is the most essential element of a healthy, productive day. WAKE UP AT THE SAME TIME EVERY DAY This has two advantages – one, your body starts to wake up naturally at the time after a few weeks and it feels so much better than waking up to an alarm. Second, it’s easier to plan your day when you know what time you’ll be up and moving. MAKE YOUR BED Start tidying up your bed within five minutes of getting up, if not immediately. It’s an old military rule and works like a charm—giving you the boost of a task tackled right at the start of the day. Additionally, your space feels neater and the temptation to crawl back into bed is fended off. LAY OUT YOUR WORKOUT OUTFIT This may seem pretty pointless but don’t knock it till you try it. Spending a minute the previous night to lay out a pair of trackpants, a t-shirt and placing a fresh pair of socks on your sneakers can often be the difference between going to the gym or for a walk and slumping into a chair, doomscrolling. The logic is to reduce barriers, no matter how tiny, between you and healthy, productive choices. DRESS FOR THE DAY I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying, “Dress for the job you want”. I’m amending that. Dress for the day you want. For me, taking a quick shower, dressing in comfortable clothes presentable enough to run errands in, has me feeling ready to be productive. Teaming that with a pair of moccasins or better still, trainers just adds to the ‘up and running’ vibe. The rest of me just follows through. EAT BREAKFAST The brain and body need some fuel to function. Eating a nutritious breakfast allows you to focus on work. Also, it will help you avoid the mid-morning crash followed by a hunt for snacks. MUCH ADO ABOUT TO-DO LISTS I consider To-Do lists a stepping stone on the path to productivity. There’s something calming about listing every small task you want to accomplish in the day. It frees up your mind from the weight of remembering them. And checking off of an item on your list generates a satisfying dopamine high, encouraging you to keep up the good work. It also helps to designate one task as a 'Must-Do'. I think of them as the sort of tasks that even on a day when I’ve done nothing much, completing that one task gives me a sense of having achieved something. In recent months, I have also taken to making Weekly To-Do lists. This way, I have a place to jot down the tasks and errands I want to get around to, in the near future but not necessarily today. This keeps them visible when I make each day’s to-do list. TIME BLOCKING TO AVOID OVERCOMMITTING Assigning blocks of time to specific tasks is a hack I’ve tried sporadically so I know it works, but I don’t follow it every day. I should. Making a list longer than China’s Great Wall leaves me feeling anxious and like I’m constantly playing catch-up. What’s worse is it leaves little or no time for relaxation making me a very dull girl indeed. And worst of all, I often end up working way past my bedtime and wake up groggy the next day. The solution to all of this is to block off parcels of time to accommodate each task. The crucial aspect is to be realistic both when making your list and allotting time. Also, please keep 10-15 minutes as a buffer between major tasks. TAKE BREAKS Speaking of buffers, take a 15-minute break to make yourself a drink, walk around or return a call. It helps to take your mind off the to-do list once in a while, preferably between tasks. Also, don't feel guilty taking a few days off work or your chores. We all need breaks and they are best enjoyed without guilt. QUANTIFY YOUR GOALS The more specific you are when listing your goals for the day, the more likely you are to complete it. ‘Go for a 20-minute walk’ somehow feels more doable on a day when motivation is low, than an ambiguous pointer like ‘Exercise’. The same logic holds true for breaking up bigger tasks into smaller chunks, making them less daunting. For instance, I often break up writing and publishing a blog post into a 5-day extravaganza spread over a week: Research topic Jot down pointers Draft post Edit post SEO work Upload and publish Tackling one or two of these tasks each day leaves time and space for other things I need to do as well as some breathing space for my mind to problem-solve unconsciously. GET SOME MOVEMENT IN I hate to sound like a fitness guru. In truth, I’m far from it. I love sugar and pastries. That should prove my credentials as a member of the Dark Side! I do, however, like to get in some form of exercise every day even if it is only a 30-minute walk with our dogs in the evening. It makes my day feel more productive and happier. An evening walk is also a great way to shift gears from work to winding down, especially if you work from home. BANISH DISTRACTIONS Keep your phone in another room or at least more than an arm’s length away. Reaching for your phone unconsciously when you should be working or getting sidetracked by constant notifications is something we all can relate to. And it’s an absolute productivity-killer. Put that phone away and you’ll be surprised at how much you get done. JOT DOWN PASSING IDEAS Keep a paper or post-it handy for ideas that float into your mind while you're doing something else. Jot them down and deal with them later, rather than getting side-tracked by a thing that may or may not be important and certainly isn't urgent. Like paying your phone bill. It’s important but doesn’t need to be paid right this minute. It can wait till you finish the task at hand. Writing it down means you won’t forget and will get to it by the end of the day. GO FOR GOOD-ENOUGH Often, we tell ourselves a particular task can only be dealt with if a particular condition is met. The ‘only if’ condition could be – ‘I should do this only if I have the time to complete it’ or ‘I will do this when I’m ready to do it really well’ or something along these lines. This may feel like perfectionism speaking. It really isn’t. It’s procrastination using a ventriloquist’s dummy. Some may say the dummy is you, if you fall for it! I know because I’ve been there. Instead, just get started. Completing 40% of a task is a lot better than zero. What’s more, it boosts the motivation to finish the job the next day. After all, it's already half-way to completion. HAVE A CUT-OFF TIME This is something I struggle with – sticking to a time when I power down my computer or close my notebook. It should ideally happen just before I leave for my evening walk but it doesn’t. Quite often, I return and get back to work. Or continue working even after dinner. That’s a bad idea because I don’t rest or connect with family and friends. It’s practices like these that lead to burnout. Please be better than me and follow a pack-up time religiously. Making time for rest and relaxation is essential. It’s the difference between toxic and happy productivity. MAKE TIME FOR LITTLE TREATS Let there be time in your day for something that brings you joy. It could be a chat with a loved one, a quiet drink after dinner, or a warm bath with all the trimmings. Some may argue these things take up time that can be used more productively elsewhere. Sure. Except that whatever else you do won’t recharge you the way your little treat will. A productive day is one where we get stuff done while making the necessary allowances for pleasure and leisure. CONCLUSION Productivity is valuable only when it helps you build a better life, not for its own sake. I’m guilty of forgetting that myself. Perhaps, I should put that on my to-do list! Drop me your suggestions, if you have any, on how to stick to my cut-off time. Or any other productivity hacks and tips that work for you.

A Slow Fire Burning is true to its name. It’s a slow burn mystery built around a pernicious fire of resentment and pain. This is Paula Hawkins’ third novel in the thriller genre following Into the Water (2017) and her smash-hit debut psychological thriller, The Girl on the Train (2015) which was also adapted into a film starring Emily Blunt. Akin to The Girl on the Train, this novel too has a host of complex and broken characters. The primary thrust of the story is the search for the murderer of Daniel Sutherland, a 23-year-old man stabbed to death on a houseboat. The cast of suspects include: Laura Kilbride, a troubled 20-year-old girl who spent the preceding night with the victim; Miriam Lewis, a nosy, middle-aged loner who lives on a houseboat moored close to the victim’s; the young man’s aunt, Carla Myerson; and Daniel's uncle, Theo Myerson who appears to have his own secrets. Hawkins tosses in the additional element of the accidental death of the victim’s lonely alcoholic mother, Angela, just two months before his own. It will have you pondering connections between the two deaths and whether they could be related. I found the opening of the novel is a bit bumpy with a new POV character being introduced in each of the initial three chapters without giving the reader any real sense of who they are. If Paula Hawkins was looking to create an air of dissonance and confusion, she succeeded. Stylistically, this is a story with multiple POV characters (Miriam, Laura, Carla and Irene) giving us an insight into their mindsets and emotions while also setting the stage for deception, lies of omission or at the very least, varied perspectives of the truth. The back and forth in the timelines of the characters' stories reveal past pain, trauma and perhaps, more crucially from the standpoint of the mystery at hand, motivations to commit a murder. The constantly bobbing narrative structure and the twists in the plot are reminiscent of a boat rocking in shallow waters. Hawkins is clever in her use of stock characters like the harmless, confused old woman in Irene or Laura, the mentally-unstable young woman with a history of physically lashing out. It’s the sort of stuff that encourages jumping to conclusions based almost solely on assumptions and stereotyping, allowing the author to use our minds to create red herrings out of ordinary character traits. Paula Hawkins employs the technique of nesting a story within another to flesh out part of a character’s backstory, set up a portion of the climax and raise questions about plagiarism in literary circles. The nested story and its implications work well enough and add to the tension in A Slow Fire Burning. The frayed threads of family torn apart by a tragedy in the past which changed for ever the lives of everyone involved is an idea running through the novel. Speaking of the past, trauma is part of almost all the characters’ life stories and very much informs their personalities and choices in the present. Even so, none of these characters came across as particularly likeable or even sympathetic. Not even Laura who, by far, has the worst luck of the lot. I put this lack of sympathy down to her lack of agency and her constant sense of her own victimhood. She never seems to take responsibility for her own actions. It’s always someone else’s fault. As a result, her misfortunes fail to evoke the kind of sympathy a more likeable character would have received. The theme that comes across most strongly in this novel is that hurt people hurt people. You might think I’m giving away a clue. I’m not, because this is a novel packed choc-a-bloc with damaged characters who end up hurting other people. A Slow Fire Burning explores the destructiveness of trauma and how it ends up snowballing into even worse consequences. Is A Slow Fire Burning worth a read? That’s for you to decide. If you do pick it up, be prepared to read on through a sluggish opening which may leave you wondering what’s going on. Don’t expect a great deal of pace until the last few chapters, which have rather convenient revelations falling over each other to help the reader arrive at the identity of the killer. Which, in itself, is not that surprising. You’ll probably see it coming.

Celeste Ng’s much-feted debut novel, Everything I never told you was published in 2014. As is apparent from the title, the novel is about secrets. The kind of stuff we keep to ourselves, hoping to hold on to the people we love and the price we end up paying for our silence. But that’s not all it’s about. I’ll tell you the rest later. For now, let’s start at the beginning. The plot of the novel revolves around the lives of a mixed-race family of five, the Lees. They live in Middlewood, a small All-American college town. The book opens on the day of their older daughter, Lydia’s disappearance and death. Using an omniscient third person narrator, Ng unfurls the story from the alternating perspectives of all five family members allowing us to witness poignant moments in their lives, present and past, and making us privy to their emotions, secrets and motivations. The narration is also peppered with several political and socio-cultural references such as the ‘the summer of the Son of Sam’, Elvis’ death and launch of NASA’s Gemini 9, grounding the story in a real-world timeline. Everything I never told you is not a whodunnit where the police or a detective solves the case. It’s a mystery that delves not so much into Lydia’s disappearance and death but the layers of her life. And it's not easy, given the double life Lydia leads. This is a character who maintained an annual diary for 12 years and never wrote a single word in it. Not one word. The reader is led by the narrator into an almost languid study of events from the parents’ childhood and youth to the children’s early years that made Lydia the person she was, and her life what it was. There’s no rushing about but the pace of the story doesn’t slacken. Racism, alienation, sexism, secrets and academic excellence being a path to acceptance are some of the themes in Everything I never told you. Celeste Ng explores the idea of how a parent’s dreams for their child can rob the child of the opportunity of finding their own way, resulting in stunted individuality. Not to say that a parent’s choices for their child are necessarily wrong, but just being pushed, no matter how subtly, is what makes them problematic. This novel reminded me of a quote by the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” Ng paints a moving portrait of the inherently human longing to be seen for who one is and how precariously the pile of small sacrifices, made in service of people we love, teeters as the years go by. By the end of Everything I never told you, one is left with a pit in one’s stomach wishing it had turned out differently and goes down the rabbit holes of thinking how a few small changes or a honest chat or two could’ve made all the difference. To me, that is the power of this book - that you're left with a tinge of regret and sadness at the waste of it all. Alas, what is done, is done and nothing alters the cold fact that Lydia is no more. Speaking of Lydia brings me back to the opening lines of the novel, “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” This opening is so good that the publishers couldn’t resist putting it in the blurb at the back of the book. One can’t fault that decision because it gives the story impetus from the word go. What makes the introductory sentences truly brilliant is that they imbue a mundane family breakfast, which is the opening scene of Everything I never told you, with gravitas because of what the reader knows but the Lees don't. For a first-time novelist, Ng is masterful with this bit of dramatic irony. Without these lines, the reader would probably have skimmed over the details or worse, shut the book and picked up another. Instead, it turns us, the readers, into keen-eyed sleuths on the lookout for clues amidst soggy cornflakes and physics homework. Characterization is another positive in Everything I never told you. The characters are relatable. Their hopes, complexes, motivations and coping mechanisms feel real whether it is Lydia’s father, James’ cloying desire for his children to be popular, Marilyn’s ‘tiger mom’ tactics to make up for the missed chances in her own life or Nathan’s tangled ties of loyalty and resentment with his sister. And then there is Hannah, the baby of the family, stuck, literally and metaphorically, in the attic. She who misses nothing from her hiding places and craves the sunshine of affection from her family. There is also a passing reference to William Faulkner’s classic The Sound and the Fury, a novel about the breakdown of a Southern, formerly aristocratic family. I saw certain parallels between the characters in Faulkner’s book and Ng’s novel. Perhaps, I’m wrong. Read Everything I never told you and let me know what you think.

Who is a friend? Most of us refer to all manner of people as our ‘friends’. Everyone, from a long-lost schoolmate, to a colleague you get coffee with, and the guy at the local squash court, is a ‘friend’. And of course, there is that ubiquitous and odd breed called the Facebook or Instagram friend. Perhaps the gradual dissolution of social formalities, which had previously required people to think in more defined relational constructs, has resulted in this ‘friend’ boom. Or maybe, this abundance of friends is a result of dropping all manner of amorphous equations into one handy little basket. Distinguishing between relationships takes time and effort, and could result in a most unsettling finding - that one does not have many friends and worse still, that one is not a true friend, even to a few. FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE If you were a fly on my bedroom wall that one night about a decade ago, you would’ve seen me journalling (it was a sporadic exercise). This was back in my insomniac era when I considered 4 am a reasonable time to go to bed. It was late enough for even late-night traffic to have lulled into silence. Except for the wind. It was a cold night and whooshing gusts of wind made it colder still. Through that night’s journalling, I came to the realisation that while I had friends, I didn’t feel close to any of them. These friends, on the other hand, considered me a close friend. But I never confided in them. And when I thought about it some more, I realised that they made a greater effort to do stuff together than I did. My approach to friendship was more laissez-faire – easy come, easy go. This got me thinking. THE FACETS OF FRIENDSHIP What creates that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing you have a friend? Is it just an amalgamation of time spent hanging out, catching movies and the usual shenanigans? Over the next few months, the question hung around the backrooms of my mind. Here’s what I figured out. Acts of service (small stuff like calling to check up on them or more substantially, picking them up from the airport), authenticity (following through on the things you said you would do and being genuine) and vulnerability (this is a tough one if you like to shelter behind a hardened outer shell) are essential to a real friendship. The kind which makes you feel seen and understood. I'm sure there are others who have expressed the idea of how the effort you make for your friend is what makes them special. However, I don't recall any who've done it better than Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince. In that section of the story, the Little Prince encounters dozens of roses that are as beautiful as the snooty little rose he adores on his home planet. All this while, he’d thought of her as one of a kind. Saint-Exupéry writes as the much-travelling Little Prince who has just realised that roses are very common flowers, “You’re beautiful, but you’re empty… One couldn’t die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass, since she’s the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.” My epiphany aided by The Little Prince was all very well. But life isn’t a one act play. There is always an antagonistic force. In this case, it is that sometimes you start watering the wrong rose and then feel wounded when it turns out to have thorns. Come to think of it, that’s just the nature of things. At least, roses. All of this caused me to ponder about friendship some more. My two cents on the subject is that there are many kinds of friendship and they are all valuable. Human interaction is crucial to mental and emotional well-being. Its degree and quantity depend on your personal inclination. Why then have many of us, at some or the other point in our lives, either felt disappointed by someone we thought of as a friend or been at the receiving end of a cold shoulder and suffered a somewhat confusing end to what we thought was a good connection? Unmatched expectations would be the short answer. Since I (and perhaps you too) do not practise Buddha-like detachment, when I invest in a relationship, I tend to, unknowingly, build in a degree of expectation of similar affection or concern. And when it doesn’t materialise, it’s disappointing. That’s why it helps to know where you stand with the people in your life and where they stand in yours. CLARIFYING CONNECTIONS Analysing our connections achieves clarity in terms of the depth of emotion involved and the expectations built into each relationship. And no, I don’t serve this up with a side order of judgement or condescension, as some may assume! Some may consider this a "grading" of interpersonal equations and by extension, of people. It is not. Neither is it a static pecking order. This runs completely contrary to my intention. Human relationships are dynamic and require two or more people. So, while I’m free to recognise a certain equation as a workplace friendship, my work friend is equally capable of doing the same. And probably does, even if they do so unconsciously. So, there’s no question of anyone looking down on anyone else. We’re all in the same boat. Also, equations can and often do change. After all, even our closest buddies were once strangers, and that changed. Purely from a practical standpoint, investing in relationships requires us to take out time for that person. And there’s a lot of stuff that wants or needs our time. How do we prioritise? That’s where my idea comes in. Its real objective is to navigate the complexities of human interaction with minimal hurt feelings on either side. To see each association for what it is - in terms of its roots, sustaining factors, purpose and emotional investment. Being aware of these aspects often gives me an insight into the type of relationship it is, allowing me to enjoy it while it flows, and let go when it naturally ebbs. FRIENDSHIP OF CIRCUMSTANCE OR TRANSIENT FRIENDSHIP Painted in broad strokes, there are three types of friendship. First on the list is friendship of circumstance or transient friendship. It has many aliases - work friend, activity friend, hangout friend, etc. Take, for example, a friendship that grows out of someone being a colleague with a schedule similar to mine, with more or less similar views on the things that absorb us at work. This common ground is the root of the friendship. This relationship is likely to last until either office dynamics cause a rift or one of us quits the workplace. A work friend leaving the shared workplace creates distance wherein earlier, there was easy accessibility. Understandably, this often proves to be a hindrance to the continuance of the friendship because now, it takes effort to meet and sustain the relationship. This is where two other elements come into play - the purpose of the friendship and emotional investment. They will now dictate the direction in which this connection moves. The purpose of most office friendships, in my experience, is to blow off steam and have someone to hang out with, have a few laughs, making the prospect of a routine work day a little more enjoyable. In terms of emotional investment, these equations don't call for much. Predictably, my friendship with my former work buddy subsides into infrequent phone calls which end with indefinite plans to meet or the exchange of the odd forward or joke on social media. Why don't my office pal and I make more of an effort to stay connected? Well, the blunt answer is that there is neither a good enough purpose to do so any longer nor the sort of emotional bond that warrants the extra effort. HANGOUT FRIENDS Another variant of transient friendships are hangout friends who are part of one’s wider circle. The only qualification required is the mutual enjoyment of each other's company, even if only in small doses. These relationships are generally more social than emotional. Plans made with hangout friends are, for the most part, quite fluid and materialise only when mutually convenient. However, there are no hurt feelings as a result of this because the relaxed level of engagement doesn't engender high expectations on either side. So, it all works out just fine! SEASONAL FRIENDSHIP That brings us to the second category of friendship - seasonal friendship. The term is not literal, obviously, since most of these equations do manage to outlast a change in weather! I use the term "seasonal" as a metaphor for the nature of this kind of bond - it engages you in the current moment and you can't imagine it changing. Just like it seems unimaginable, during the summer, that you would ever want to be packed into a thick, fleece-lined jacket coupled with a pair of woollen trousers and three pairs of socks. And yet, there comes a day when you're doing just that! In fact, even throwing a muffler into the mix. Anyway, I digress. In a nod to chronology, perhaps I should speak first of the Spring of seasonal friendships rather than their Winter. They usually begin as transient friendships which grow deeper, organically, due to a combination of favourable circumstances and overlapping spheres of interest. This rapport is further strengthened by the passage of time, joint experiences and shared confidences. Seasonal friends are an integral part of our lives and often, one cannot foresee these bonds fizzling out. And yet, they often do. Even the most durable seasonal friendships tend to run out of steam between year one and year seven. For some reason, that someone a lot smarter than yours truly would have to decipher, seven years is something of a watershed moment in most close friendships. If a friendship manages to make it past the seven-year mark without dissolving into a casual connection, you’ve most likely found yourself a lifelong buddy. Take a moment and think back to some of your pals from years ago - the ones who seemed like they would stick around. My guess is that a majority of those friendships dissipated before they crossed the seven-year milestone. However, the ones that did make it past the mark, are probably still around. This brings me to the last form of friendship - lifelong friends. LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP Lifelong friends are the folks you've known for so long that it seems pointless to keep track of the years. More often than not, you meet them early in life. This seems to me like the Universe's devious plan to make sure you never forget all the lame stuff you got up to! Or maybe, the people you meet in school, college or in the trenches of your first job get to know you while you're still figuring out who you are, and before you start taking yourself too seriously. Growing up in a shared environment certainly is a good glue but even that is likely to come unstuck unless the friendship is backed by a strong emotional bond, common core values and a sense of being invested in each other's lives. It is these factors that induce you to stay up way past your bedtime to call a friend in a different time zone or move past an argument that would've ended a lesser friendship. It’s the effort that you put in that makes the friendship special. THE MAKING OF A LIFELONG FRIENDSHIP Of these three factors that help sustain a lifelong friendship, an emotional bond is fairly self-explanatory. As for investment in each other's lives, let me attempt an explanation. It’s when your friend’s success or failure feels like you have a share in it because you’ve seen their struggle even though they may shrug it off as inconsequential in front of others. That leaves us with common core values, by which I mean a shared or complementary view of ideas such as integrity, trust, family, life goals, et al. Having a similar outlook on these subjects leads to an understanding that deepens, and perhaps goes beyond, shared experiences and an emotional connection. It is this common value system that makes one's old friends such good advisors when we’re faced with life’s important decisions. They know how you think and what's important to you, especially in times when you may need reminding. They care enough to point out your mistakes in the gentlest way possible so that you can grow. The best part though is that you can count on your friends to pull your leg and make you laugh. Sometimes, that’s all you need – someone to be silly with. Above all, it is the unwavering belief that despite busy schedules, the natural crests and troughs of life and the arrival of new friends, a lifelong friend will always show up, in your corner, when you need them. A friend inspires you to be a better version of yourself even though they know where the bodies are buried (hopefully, only metaphorically. If not, you better hope they’re a great friend!), someone who builds you up while keeping you grounded and is the person you never want to let down. To know there exists such a person, whether next door or two continents away—one who knows all your stories; listens to the bizarre nonsense you come up with, calls it nonsense but listens anyway; and is your moral compass in a topsy-turvy world—is that rare luxury called a friend. BE A FRIEND Ultimately, to have good friends, you also need to be one. How does one judge that? Effort. That’s the truest measure. If you talk a good game but repeatedly fail to show up when it counts, then you need to work on that. It’s not enough to say that you had the right intention. It’s like Stephen Covey, the author of The Speed of Trust puts it, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.” As time passes, good intentions alone fail to pass muster. The ones who matter make the effort and those who don’t, don’t matter as much. Though I’d still catch a movie with them.

In the author’s note, Stuart Turton acknowledges that while The Devil and the Dark Water could be classified as a historical novel, it isn’t because some bits of historical detail aren’t strictly accurate. Which is another way of saying they’re inaccurate and he made a choice for them to be so, else they would impede the telling of his tale. So, dear reader, don’t dive into The Devil and the Dark Water expecting to glean historical details or even a believable depiction of what it took to sail across the seas in the 1600s. In fact, even the conduct of some of the characters isn’t quite what you would expect it to be, given the era they’re in. But in my mind, almost all is forgiven thanks to the author’s disclosure that “this is historical fiction where the history is the fiction”. So, pick it up if you are looking for a fun yarn with ample twirls and twists. The Devil and the Dark Water is set in the year 1634 and on the Saardam, part of a fleet of seven ships scheduled to sail from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam. The fleet, ferrying the usual colonial fare of spices and silk alongwith a mysterious and precious cargo, is owned by the United East India Company, the wealthiest trading company in the world. Right before the fleet sets off on an eight-month long journey to Amsterdam, a leper proclaims the presence of his dark master aboard the Saardam and his ruinous intentions for the ship and all on it. The leper then combusts, apparently spontaneously, atop some packing crates. His prophecy, identity and manner of death are the first few mysteries we’re pulled into. Oh, did I mention the said prophesising leper had no tongue? Add another notch in the mysteries column. Aboard the cursed ship is the arrogant and ruthless Governor General of Batavia, Jan Haan. This is a triumphant voyage for him. Having governed the Company’s most profitable outpost for thirteen years, Haan is now on his way to take his place on the ruling body of the company - the Gentlemen 17. Unfortunately for everyone else, it is Haan’s decision whether or not to risk hundreds of lives by persisting with the voyage. Travelling with him is his wife, Sara Wessel, a healer and a lover of mysteries who loathes her husband. Also being transported is a prisoner, Samuel Pipps, who in a twist of fate has gone from being the greatest detective in the world to a convict in a dank, lightless cell. What he did to deserve such a rapid descent in status is another riddle. His loyal bodyguard is Lieutenant Arent Hayes – a mountain of a man with a noble heart and several secrets. Will he and Sara Wessel be able to solve the mystery of strange symbols appearing on the ship's sails, whispers turning common folk into followers of the Devil and the disappearance of a witch-finder who suspected one of the passengers of being the Devil? Or will the Devil known as Old Tom have his pernicious way? The plot of The Devil and the Dark Water unfolds from the viewpoints of various characters giving us an insight into their unspoken thoughts and worldview. This is necessary because no character can possibly be everywhere. Turton steps away from using a third person narrator, which was the preferred narrative style of the era he’s writing about, with good reason. Third person narration doesn’t allow for the kind of half-light and half-shadow effect that multiple first person perspectives can create. An omniscient narrator that doesn’t reveal the most poignant truth about a character who is lying about their true identity would leave readers feeling cheated. Multiple character POVs leap over that hurdle in addition to lending a hand in fleshing out characters. If you think about it, you’ll probably agree that unreliability is better suited to individual characters rather than omniscient narrators. Turton also sprinkles in healthy doses of backstory for each of his primary characters, giving them a sense of grounding as well as acting as the soil in which their deepest desires and motivations take root. The Devil and the Dark Water has several themes such as ambition, greed, gender stereotypes and hatred but behind it all, stands fear. Every character in the book has something they fear and the Devil, of course, is everyone’s fear. How fear can make reasonable and good people do the unimaginable is well-explored. Stuart Turton writes, “Fear was too brittle a material to make good decisions from.” Aside from a pacy plot packed with revelations, cliff-hangers, knife-fights and chases at regular intervals, Turton’s style is probably the thing that kept me hooked to The Devil and the Dark Water. His writing is clever and witty without being laboured. That said, there are parts that lack consistency in terms of character motivations and some explanations of the trickier parts of the plan are just left to our imagination. To add to it, some of the smaller puzzles littered throughout the novel are resolved way too simplistically to be satisfying. In terms of genre, Turton melds together his version of historical fiction with a whodunnit topped with a dash of horror in The Devil and the Dark Water. And while the ending may not be wholly satisfying, it still is an enjoyable read.

There was a time when to be considered well-educated and cultured, you had to be able to recall facts, figures and preferably, whole passages from notable books verbatim. Today, all that is considered old hat and unnecessary. Barring one or two, I don’t know anyone under the age of 50 who can recite a poem from memory. Forget poetry, I’d be surprised to meet someone who can dial more than four cellphone numbers, belonging to people they speak to regularly, without diving for their mobile. The externalisation of our memories got us to this point. ... and most of the them aren't responding! From phone numbers and email addresses to birthdays and anniversaries, it’s all saved on our phones or on some notional cloud. There are people who believe that in the hectic, information-overloaded lives we lead, it makes sense to let external memories take care of these small potatoes for us. But is the externalisation of our memories only about freeing up our grey cells for more lofty matters? Or is it a move to pronounce memory a relic in our post post-modern or metamodern times or whatever else folks are calling the decades we’ve lived through in this century? It's been fashionable for some time now to disparage all kinds of memorisation in education as rote-learning. The slow disappearance of memorization in classrooms has its philosophical roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1762 novel, Emile: Or, On Education. It was a book about a child raised by means of a “natural education,” learning only through self-experience. Rousseau abhorred memorization, amongst other statutes of institutional education at the time. “Reading is the great plague of childhood,” he wrote. While there is no doubt, I’m sure, that the educational ideology Rousseau so disliked was genuinely mind-numbing and called for improvement, I’m not so sure that reading is such an evil so as to be compared to a plague. In today’s context, maybe calling it a pain in the neck would be more like it! Jokes apart, I agree that children learn more from growing plants than memorising scientific classifications of plant species. Therefore, should all facts be tossed out of the window? There are those who consider the learning of dates and events in history to be pointless since we can just look them up on the internet, within seconds. Sure, you could, if you knew what you were looking for. For instance, if I asked you when the Great Depression began, you could just google it. That’s very well, if the question is specific. But what if we were talking about the Second World War? Could you have made the connection between the impact the Great Depression had on Germany’s already-strained economy culminating in Hilter’s elevation to the top job, leading eventually to the outbreak of World War II if you’d never read about the Great Depression of 1929? Making connections requires, at the very least, a basic understanding of what happened, when and why. The precise dates don't matter but the broad timelines of events do. Without that, it’s like walking through a fog. Don’t believe me? Then you’ve clearly never searched for the word ‘ouija’ in a dictionary only on the basis of its pronunciation without having the foggiest idea of its spelling. I assure you, it’s not for the easily-frustrated! Another opinion one hears a lot nowadays, is how schools should be teaching students how to think, not what to think and therefore, the focus on learning about too many ‘boring things' should be minimised, and out-of-the-box thinking encouraged. I’m a big fan of people possessing critical thinking skills but I’ve never known anyone who can think coherently without having the ability to recall at least some facts and having a fundamental knowledge of how things came about in the field being discussed. A certain grounding is essential. It’s very rare that reasoning ability, creativity and independent thinking, let alone revolutionary new ideas, emerge without at least, some learning. Most of us are not Srinivasa Ramanujam and therefore, need some help before we can begin to expound. The key, I believe, lies in focusing on understanding ideas and the correlation and causality between things, not memorizing minutiae. Speaking of bright people, have you noticed how people who know a lot about a lot always seem to be able to remember the new stuff they learn faster than others who don’t know as much? Why is that? Is it possible that like in the case of money, it takes knowledge to gain knowledge? I mean that in order to understand new things, one needs a conceptual framework, a lattice of ideas and concepts, if you will. New information sticks faster and better if you have something for it to latch itself onto. Obviously, this lattice is not built only of information found in books but also grows out of experiential learning and one’s interests. But the point is, that it needs to be remembered in order to be useful. One way to foster inquisitive, knowledgeable people is to give them, in some measure, the basic signposts that can guide them through a life of learning. Creativity is the ability to spark connections between what you know from memory, what you see in the present and what you’d like to create. I read somewhere that Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory, was the mother of the Muses. This is one of those times when Greek mythology gets it right on the money! For me to have added this delicious little nugget here, I had to remember it because there is no way that I could’ve googled that, without first having, at least, an inkling of the myth. Educational reform that sets off to vanquish evils such as memorizing may make school more pleasant for students but will it really help them think more critically or creatively? That’s a question we need to think about before we start demonising everything that needs to be remembered. Before I end, I want to share that when I was writing this post, I passed by my father’s study and he was listening to We didn’t start the Fire by Billy Joel. It’s always been a favourite of mine and it got me thinking. If I hadn’t read or heard about the events and people mentioned, would I have appreciated the song?