Oh, how I totally missed this catch-up post. Better than late never, isn’t it? So, here we are. I am excited to share some of the best books I read in 2022 with a hope you pick them up too. After all, life is too short to miss out on the good books and time’s too precious to read bad books.
For the past few years, I am on a self-assigned mission of reading more of Indian Literature. As a result, I am exploring books and authors I haven’t read before. In this list too, I bring to you some of the finest Indian literature you cannot afford to miss and here’s the top 5 that I recommend with my life.
Here’s the Youtube video:
A defenceless male elephant calf, born on the grasslands of the great Brahmaputra River, grows into a formidable tusker, journeying through the verdant green hills of northeastern India and Burma. With him, we walk through the vastness of the Indo-Malayan rainforests as he attempts to understand the humans who have irretrievably changed the jungles he roams.
Hira Singh, a forest guard in the Nadhia Wildlife Sanctuary, crosses paths with a female leopard who is facing shrinking forests in the hills that are her home. Their lives closely mirror each other’s, following similar patterns of love and loss, as fate resolves to bring the two together, perhaps for the last time.
Read the book review: Blue Sky, White Cloud
Nadia, a wildlife biologist researching geese, travels to Mongolia, where she tags two geese: Blue Sky and White Cloud. As the birds fly southwards over the Himalayas, she meets Vivek, India’s Minister of State for Environment. Their instantaneous friendship soon takes Vivek to a lush valley at the base of the soaring Himalayas, where he must make a decision that will impact the lives of all around him.
With beautiful illustrations and rich prose, the three novellas in Blue Sky, White Cloud narrate stories from the perspectives of man and beast, showing us that, much like us, animals, too, have extraordinary stories to tell.
When the astonishingly lovely Anuradha moves to Bombay to marry Vardhmaan, a charming young doctor, their life together has all the makings of a fairy tale. But when their firstborn son dies in a terrible accident, tragedy transforms their marriage into a bleak landscape. As the pair starts fresh in a heartbroken old villa by the sea, they are joined by Nandini, a dazzling and devious artist with a trace of leopard blood in her veins.
Read the book review: The Last Song of Dusk
While Nandini flamboyantly takes on Bombay’s art scene, the couple attempts to mend their marriage, eventually discovering that real love, mercurial and many-hued, is given and received in silence. Sensuous and electric, achingly moving and wickedly funny, The Last Song of Dusk is a tale of fate that will haunt your heart like an old and beloved song.
Rahul Pandita was fourteen years old in 1990 when he was forced to leave his home in Srinagar along with his family, who were Kashmiri Pandits: the Hindu minority within a Muslim majority Kashmir that was becoming increasingly agitated with the cries of ‘Azadi’ from India. The heartbreaking story of Kashmir has so far been told through the prism of the brutality of the Indian state, and the pro-independence demands of separatists.
Read the book review: Our Moon Has Blood Clots
But there is another part of the story that has remained unrecorded and buried. Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the unspoken chapter in the story of Kashmir, in which it was purged of the Kashmiri Pandit community in a violent ethnic cleansing backed by Islamist militants. Hundreds of people were tortured and killed, and about 3,50,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes and spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country. Rahul Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss.
The night is tired now, the old moon, hanging in the dark sky, is tired too. It is the 1990s and Kashmir’s long war has begun to claim its first victims. Among them are Ghulam Rasool Joo, Haleema’s father and her teenage son Imran, who is picked up by the authorities only to disappear into the void of Kashmir’s missing people.
Read the book review: The Half Mother
The Half Mother is the story of Haleema-a mother and a daughter yesterday, a ‘half mother’ and an orphan today, tormented by not knowing whether Imran is dead or alive, torn apart by her own lonely existence. While she battles for answers and seeks out torture camps, jails and morgues for any signs of Imran, Kashmir burns in a war that will haunt it for years to come. Heart-wrenching, deeply troubling and lyrical, The Half Mother marks the debut of a bold new voice from Kashmir.
1947, Chakri. An idyllic village on the banks of the Soan near Rawalpindi, surrounded by stalks of golden wheat and festive songs. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs eagerly await the end of winter and get together to prepare for Lohri. Amidst this joyous bustle, Baba Bhana, the erudite village elder, worries about the future of his foster daughter, Naseem. Life comes to a halt when news of a possible partition of India reaches the village.
Read the book review: Hymns in Blood
Amid a frenzy of communal violence, Baba Bhana and his family must reluctantly leave their beloved village. They embark on a long and dangerous journey, slowly coming to terms with the fact that their lives may be changing forever. Khoon de Sohile, first published in February 1948, and now translated for the first time into English, provides a timely reminder of the grief and trauma that a religious divide brings in its wake.
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That’s the list of best books I read in 2022. These are some of the books with great characters, storylines, and writing. But mostly because they teach you a thing or two about what good novels ought to be like. Have you read any of these? How did you like them?
Question of the Day
What were some of the best books you read in 2022?
Do share them in comments below.
Happy reading till we meet next. Until then, carpe diem!
Asha Seth 