yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Title: Days at the Torunka Cafe  Author: Satoshi Yagisawa  ISBN: 978-1-78658-757-2  First Published: Japanese 2022, English 2025  Pages: 224  Price: 399/-   Six lines on the book First things first. The cover entices.   I purchased a book on whim, after long, and it turned out to be a good companion to 2 of the author’s previous books -  Days at the Morisaki Bookstore  and  More days at the Morisaki Bookstore . There is a special feel to the author’s simplicity, and, the translator too has kept it so. Together they remind us that life is simple, and we can live it better that way,  The author sees no need to project an iota of complexity or intelligence more than the story, its flow, warrants. There is not much that is earth-shaking, or book-shaking here, but the book keeps you glued.  The book reminds us that the normal is so very different for each of us. That there are stories within and around us which we will do good ...

  Evening walks sometimes lead to surprises,  Surprises - around the corner - that do what no planning can,  Suddenly these flowers are there, and only there on the hill,  And, we dare not ask any questions, but do it all, Go close in awe, look with admiration, touch with trepidation,  just be there around them, We do not plan, but are back the next day,  To pay respects, to thank them for being there,  To the beauty that reminded us of Van Gogh, Beauty that, at times, in sheer human arrogance, is brushed aside as weeds,  Walks that gel with the silences around,  Walks that help set the pace of our lives, Walks where we are closer to ourselves,  Walks, one of the reasons we are here, 

A book I recently read, and enjoyed About the book Title: The Lost Bookshop  Author: Evie Woods Publisher: One More Chapter (Harper Collins)  First Published: 2023 ISBN: 978-0-00-860921-4 Pages: 434 Genre: Fiction Price: 599/- What I liked about the book Has 3 parallel stories spanning 2 timelines The author is good with words and has enjoyed writing the book Frequently mentions other books and authors  Characters converse with historical personalities (including authors)   The section where story turns sad was touching  Page turner with the pace picking up towards the end  Different from what little I have read recently Magic realism  Few lines that stood out  It was such a terrible excuse, it must have been the truth It is only in something’s absence that you realise how much space it takes up At least in children’s books nothing terrible happened, and if it did, it always got fixed by the end People don’t like it when you tell them things you s...

Old Path White Clouds People wiser have taught us how it is the book that decides how and when it will interact with us and not the other way round. Old Path White Clouds underscored this dictum yet again for me. It is 7 months now that we had purchased the book (from, of course, our favourite book store ). Since, it sat (needless to add, peacefully) on the rack - an arm's length from where we sit and chat at the end of each day.   Reading Old Path White Clouds accompanied by the vacation sounds (read quality silences) on the campus has been special. I had enjoyed, on similar lines, my time with the two books I had read during the previous vacation - Learning from silence and Sachha Sur .  Like I did with the previous two books, with this book too, I went slow and after every few pages or so I took a break to absorb what I had read. The mahaul around only helped - the silences outside gelling aptly with the inner silences, peace, and calm these books talk about.  I read...

Some thoughts on reading a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago -  Newspaper: The Indian Express Date: 4th October  Title: The Teacher is Walking Away Author: Krishna Kumar  At the onset I clarify that I have, over the years, read Krishna Kumar’s articles,  learnt from them, and also shared them with friends.  This particular article talks about problems in the school system today - a system that relies excessively on data and where ‘teaching and children don’t matter’. There is no denying these problems - many of which are driven by societal changes. The focus on ‘permanent teaching job’ - the first line onwards - though, left me perplexed!  Now, the questions - Let us begin with numbers -  How many people have quit ‘permanent teaching jobs’ to return to ‘state of unemployment and uncertainty’? Is the number high enough that we need to be concerned in the manner that the article suggests?  Where does this number of quitting teachers stan...

Gender and craftwork in rural society: The role of education  Author: Nidhi Gaur  ISBN: 978-1-032-84327-6  First published: 2025  Publisher: Routledge  Pages: 181 The review up at Teacher Plus here .  Warmly thanking Teacher Plus and Routeledge . Is craft-centred education the way to go? This book is an outcome of the author, Nidhi Gaur’s, study of Anand Niketan in Wardha, Maharashtra. This is a school where “ Work is not associated with particular people; rather, it is perceived simply as work that needs to be done. ” The first chapter, Introduction, deftly conveys what the book is all about; it states, “ So far, craft-centred education has not been studied from the perspective of gender, so this study revisits an older idea with a new perspective. ” The book has been neatly structured over nine chapters spread across 181 pages. The final chapter, Implications and conclusion, succinctly sums up the learning – “ The examination of the pedagogy of crafts ha...

Some music performances are special, they stay with you,  The audience  'lives in the moment' , sways in unison,  The venue, the audience, the artist, the craft all become one,  Banaras enabled us to experience a few such performances,  The 2025 edition of Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh had one by Mehtab Ali Niyazi ,  Together the artist and the place created a mahaul that is almost indescribable,  The place we were familiar to, it has given us other moments too which we treasure,  The artist, we are glad we could experience that evening,  Glimpses of the performance here  Youtube , Facebook , Instagram ,  Thankful to Mehtab Ali Niyazi for reminding us what music can do, for showing us that one can have poise, composure, grace  while creating magic,  Thankful to the organizers for ensuring that the performance was accorded the priority it deserved,  for giving us memories together, 

Learning from silence  Pico Iyer  Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House India  2025  ISBN 9780143474364  Pages 214  Price 599/-  Thanks Eesha for the suggestions on the draft.  One could talk about silence as " quiet " or " absence of sound " or just " silence " or on similar lines. Or one can be eloquent like Chesterton was on the colour white ( he described it as a strong colour in itself, not an absence of colour, drew parallels with virtue and so ). In this book Pico Iyer takes the Chesterton path, only he goes way deeper. He writes about what silence has meant to him over the years as he consciously put in more and more time with it, how people he looks up to understand silence, what it has done to him as a person, and more. The text flows smoothly as he opens up and talks about his family, the people he bumped into at the retreat, the conversations with them, and the forest-fires which impacted his home and the retreat, as he describes how s...

Saccha Sur  Cultivating The Soul In The Field Of Grace  Stories by Sanghamitra  Published by AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society  Illustrations by Eesha  ISBN 978-81-7060-439-6  Second edition 2023  Price 555/- Pages 154 I read Saccha Sur immediately after The Grammar of Greed . And, this after having hardly read during the recent months. Was it a coincidence to read of the inner world after the outer, of sangeet after laalach , of g urus after rulers, of t anpuras after mobile phones? But then, like I have been told more than once during the recent months, "there are no accidents" .  These books have similarities as well - both have high production values and aesthetic appeal for example - but for now I will move on.  I will talk about what I gleaned from Saccha Sur rather than comment on the book. Also I will refrain from quoting lines from the book - there is one too many for this!  Life  Saccha Sur assured me that I am ...

Some questions, Some numbers  Storms delay 50 flights and divert 50 flights in Dilli. Heavy rains cancel 50 flights in Bombay. Headlines like these are common these days.  Headlines which raise few questions.  Since when have flights become indicators of bad weather?  Does weather affect only those who travel by flights?  Are we, our media, bothered only about the upper crust that travels by flights?  Is time important only for those who travel by flights?  Are flights our only or the most popular mode of transport?  If it is about flight delays do flight delays at smaller airports make news?  Is it only the English media that reports in this manner?  In a country like India should this be news leave alone headlines? If nature has decided on rains and storms do we have an option other than waiting? Just so that we have a perspective Roughly 4 ~ 5 lakh people in India travel by flights each day Roughly 40 ~ 50 lakh people use the Dilli Me...

The Grammar of Greed  Reflections on a Fatal Ecology  Aseem Shrivastava  Illustrations Sachin Vyam  Pages 246 First published March 2025  Publisher Red River Story  ISBN 978-93-48111-84-5  Price 799/-  At the beginning Aseem bhai writes, “ The book is written for those moments when there is an interval of leisure to ponder. ” This worked - the lines, the illustrations, the spaces all made me ponder! He adds,“ The sentences in this book are to be read very slowly. They cannot be digested without patience. ” While the book touched me as I travelled the pages I realised that for all my claims of having slowed down I have a lot to walk on the road! This is what the book does, it reminds you where you stand! And, it resonates! The text is all about “ we ” and not about “ them ”; the author and the reader are integral to the world that the book talks about; it neither talks about the “ other ” nor does the tone imply a higher ground - moral, intellectua...

A New Landscape  A New Life In More Ways Than One Thanks Eesha For The Image And A Lot Else 

Book Title: Poor Economics for Kids Authors: Esther Duflo and Cheyenne Olivier Published in: 2024 Publisher: Juggernaut Books ISBN: 9789353455866 Price: 999/- Pages: 381 Thanks to Teacher Plus for publishing the review and to Harmony for getting the book. What is this book about?  “ This book tells the stories of Nilou and her friends, a group of children and teens, and the adults who live with them. These children live in a village, one which could be in India or Kenya or Vietnam or elsewhere, and we see them deal with some ordinary and not-so-ordinary challenges. ” Stories from “ a world both very different and yet intensely familiar ”.  These stories are connected by a set of common characters, and of course, the setting. Education, health, urban migration, elections, fear, beliefs, food, greenery, livelihood, government, and gender are the topics they touch upon. The issues they highlight are universal. This is also a book written during or just after the COVID pandem...