Compared to the last couple of years, I read fewer books in 2025, but I think the variety was higher. That probably explains the highest number of fiction books in a long time.
And so, once again, like 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 , and 2024, presenting #Bibliofiles 2025’s list of ten (plus the long list). From the 58 books I read this year…
(more…)Neha Dixit
‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’ is the kind of book that forces one to look at one’s privilege at an individual level, and holds a mirror to all of us at a societal level. Neha Dixit has researched this book for nine years, and the breadth and depth of her 900+ interactions, and her thinking, is evident in the structure and narrative of the book.
It is, as the cliche goes, the voice of the voiceless – the people whose desperate toils to survive we deliberately look away from or pretend not to see, because it is a reality we will find difficult to face if we consider ourselves human. I call it sub-human because, from our gated vantage point, in a nation whose GDP chest-thumping and gleaming malls and fancy consumer goods belies the struggle of the large majority of its population, people like Syeda exist in conditions that are perilous in terms of income, health, and safety. A poor, Muslim, woman.
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