A page from my life

For as long as I’ve been reading, I’ve tried to avoid outright bashing a book unless it’s really, really awful. I respect the effort, imagination and time that authors invest into their work.  But One Indian Girl by Chetan Bhagat? That’s a book I will bash unapologetically! I bought this book almost a decade ago, during a time when Chetan Bhagat was a gateway author for many young Indian readers. I have no shame in admitting that I got hooked on reading thanks to Five Point Someone and 2 States. They were breezy, entertaining and easy to digest. But now, the 30-something me is genuinely terrified to revisit those books. I have a feeling I’d cringe at every other page. As for One Indian Girl, it’s not just a poorly written book; it’s an actively harmful one. This isn’t a story told from a female protagonist’s point of view. This is a story about what a man thinks a feminist woman sounds like. And trust me, that’s far worse than it sounds. If you’re ever sitting around on a cold day...

I’ve always believed that you should re-read the same books and re-watch the same movies at two different stages in your life. Because you change, your beliefs shift, your empathy deepens and your boundaries get clearer. Something you once loved might suddenly make you cringe. Something you dismissed before might now hit you right in the gut. So this week, I rewatched two movies. Gehraiyaan The first was Gehraiyaan. I remember watching it during COVID and absolutely hating everything about it. Maybe because, back then, I was someone who could only see the world in black and white. I may not love Gehraiyaan, but I understand it now. The messiness, the emotional baggage, the intergenerational trauma, the relationships that defy labels, they make sense in a way they didn’t before. But if you ask me now, five years later? I’d say there are greys everywhere. My perspective has definitely changed.But that’s a story for another time. The movie I really want to talk about is Thappad We watched...