HT Picks; New Reads
On the reading list this week is a Nobel laureate’s new book that’s part memoir, part cookbook,a collection of stories from the work of Sanskrit playwrights like Kalidasa, Vishakhadatta and Shudraka, and a diary to commemorate the birth centenary of one of India’s most celebrated film-makers
Perfectly tempered
Chhaunk, oil infused with different spices, lies at the heart of Indian cooking. It is just a few teaspoons, but it finishes a dish and gives it its particular piquancy. The pieces in this book can be seen as a literary chhaunk – a sprinkling of ideas and arguments around the social sciences, which imparts its own distinct flavour.
Part memoir, part cookbook, Chhaunk playfully uses food to talk about economics, society and India, and makes unexpected connections, say, between savings and shami kebab or between women’s liberation and the Bengali vegetable dish of ghanto.
Abhijit Banerjee, economist and Nobel laureate, loves to cook and feed people, and misses India all the time. This collection of essays – light in style and big on ideas – is his attempt to string the many parts of his eclectic existence together.*
Full of charm and deep delight
Flirtatious kings, powerful, controlling wives, lovelorn young women who give their hearts away unwisely, disguises and mistaken identities that cause all kinds of trouble – these are the ingredients of the great Sanskrit plays. Urbane, cynical, witty and enjoyable, the plays written by Kalidasa, Vishakhadatta, Mahendravarman, Harsha and Shudraka, among others, give us a vivid glimpse of city life in the classical period. Beautifully adapted into stories by the acclaimed Sanskritist and translator Arshia Sattar, this is a book full of charm and deep delight.*
Marking 100 years of Guru Dutt
Nasreen Munni Kabir is a well-known writer on cinema and has published several books on the subject, including a series of conversations with some of Bollywood’s best-known personalities, such as Javed Akhtar, Waheeda Rehman and Lata Mangeshkar. In 2021, she conceptualised a beautiful paperback to commemorate the birth centenary of the much-loved poet and songwriter Sahir Ludhianvi: it could be used as a diary, as well as read and admired. For 2025, she has created a similarly elegant diary as a tribute to the life and work of one of India’s most celebrated film-makers. Like In the Year of Sahir, The Legacy of Guru Dutt is both functional and a lovely keepsake that you can put on your shelves as a book to treasure long after you have made your notes in it for the year.*
All copy from book flap.
