I spent the first several years of my life learning to read. In the beginning, it was learning to read and write the Bengali script in a Bengali medium school. I had memorized the first eight to ten lines of countless poems (that’s what they asked in the exams), learnt about some poet’s romanticization of some river in Bangladesh, and got confused a lot trying to differentiate between the number 4 in Bengali script and 8 in English.

After that, it was about learning to read English words properly and finding the optimal pen strokes so that I could maximize the number of words I wrote down in my answer book.

The first few books that I read for fun, in the sense that they were not required readings in school, were the Oxford English to English dictionary (I read this cover to cover multiple times—there really wasn’t much to do outside of going to school, and coming back home. So I had plenty of time on my hands.), the Samsad Bengali to English dictionary (I read this cover to cover too. Growing up, I really wished to learn how to speak fluent English.), and an Atlas, which was a gift from my cousin (It had colorful flags, names of capital cities, and beautiful photos of the Sahara Desert. I could not have known while memorizing Austria (not Australia)—Vienna that someday I’d get to live there for months).

I read Mahatma Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth sometime between Classes 8 to 10. The school let me borrow the book because I did well in my exams. By the second year in my new English medium school, I had started topping my classes and also gained decent fluency in English. I suppose reading the dictionaries actually helped. There was a room everyone referred to as “Library,” but it had no books. It was mostly used for holding remedial classes and exams. The books were locked away elsewhere, in some other room. I got lucky because we were cleaning/dusting the room and I happened to come across the book. It is kind of funny, looking back. But it also feels kind of tragic. Books are meant to be read, not tucked away in some room. Then I got lost in preparing for the Class 10 board exams. As one of my teachers had put it, it was the first ever public exam of my life because now people outside the confines of my school would be taking the same exam.

Classes 11 and 12 were not much better. Most of my waking hours were devoted to understanding Physics, Chemistry, and Math concepts. But now and then someone in the hostel would circulate a few books in secret. That’s how I read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. I had also read a book about some monk who had sold his Ferrari (Lewis, remember who you are!). My hostel mates and I were preparing for JEE Advanced (the entrance exam to get into one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, the IITs), so at some point someone circulated Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT by Chetan Bhagat. That was perhaps the first time I came across “IIMA” (in the “about the author” section). I read more than one Chetan Bhagat book during this period simply because the books were in circulation and there was not much to do outside of studying Physics, Chemistry, and Math.

I read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight sometime during the first or second year of my undergrad. It taught me a lot about hard work and about being at the right place at the right time. I could not read a lot of books during this period, but this was one of the books that left a deep impression on me.

Honestly, the first time I truly started reading for fun was during the COVID-19 lockdown. I had done the bulk of the required coursework for my undergrad degree by then. I could not take on additional research projects or anything else because it was difficult to keep them up amidst everything, so I just read books. I came across Educated by Tara Westover during this time and it left a lifelong impression on me. It is one of my favorite books of all time.

I read Ikigai and Atomic Habits too during this period and decided I was done with the self-help genre for the rest of my life. I’m actually quite happy that I came across them early in life because now I can focus on other genres, genres that I have come to love. One such book that deals with love, friendships, and the whole human experience is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It is a storytelling masterpiece.

IIM Ahmedabad has one of the best libraries in the country. The Vikram Sarabhai Library is quite accommodative of students’ requests too. They mostly have all the popular and niche books that are published, but in case something is missing, you can place a request and they’ll acquire it for you. I read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder while browsing the shelves one afternoon. My Life in Full by Indra Nooyi was a good read too. As someone pursuing an MBA degree at the time, it helped to learn more about the story of someone who took some of the same path and ended up rising to the very top in her field. Someone at IIMA even distributed a hardcover copy of the book to everyone. I still have the book with me.

I read just one or two books during the seven months I spent in Vienna. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday is a hilarious book. I got the book from a second-hand bookstore on my way to a cafe one day. I really liked the vibe of the bookstore. If I ever open a cafe with a bookstore, the bookstore will probably look something like that second-hand bookstore. I also read System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot by Mehran Sahami, Jeremy M. Weinstein, and Rob Reich. I remember staying up all night reading the book because the authors came to the Vienna University of Economics and Business the next day. It was probably the first time that I spoke to the authors of a book that I read to get some of my questions answered directly.

On returning to India, I decided I needed to learn more about the world close to me. To understand why things are the way that they are, to know more about my place in this part of the world, and whether things are getting better or worse on the whole. I picked up Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood and Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home. The stories were so gripping. These two books reminded me of the times I visited my maternal grandmother’s house as a child.

We would wake up before sunrise to walk to the nearest market (a walk of about an hour or two) to catch the bus back home. The journey usually took the entire day. The books reminded me of the grass cuts that I got, of my uncles and aunts carrying me on their backs when I got too tired walking, and of the rusted pebbles that slipped in between my toes creating this really awkward dilemma because I couldn’t walk with the stony feeling but also couldn’t take my chappals off because that meant stepping on the sands of the unpaved road. The books reminded me of how far we have come. It was a good feeling.

Tripura shares a border with Bangladesh on three sides. In some areas, you can see the international border some distance away as you drive by. It was quite fascinating reading India and the Bangladesh Liberation War by C. Dasgupta, a former Indian diplomat. I learned a lot from this book. An interest in the diplomat’s writings and diplomacy in general led me to A Life in Diplomacy by MK Rasgotra, whom Dr. S. Jaishankar had called the GOAT of the Indian Foreign Service. There are several noteworthy anecdotes in the book. It also shows the human side of things amidst all the protocols. It was a great read. I came away feeling more optimistic about things.

These days I spend most of my time reading to learn more about the world around me. Inevitably, that means thinking about how to navigate the world with all the changes happening. With everything seemingly AI-powered now, AI Snake Oil by Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan was a sensible read. It talks about what AI systems can do reliably, what AI can’t do, and also offers a few ways to tell the difference. Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang talks about the lives of four women in modern China. Although set in a different country, stories of doing everything one can to improve lives (of oneself, and those around), to do better than the earlier generation, etc. felt quite relatable.

I’ve been re-reading Prof. Karthik Muralidharan’s Accelerating India’s Development. The first time I came across his work was in the Education Policy in India course taught by Prof. Ambrish Dongre at IIMA. It is one of my favorite books about the challenges we face as a country and how to overcome some of them. Whereas this book talks about the current challenges, India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha talks about the history of the country—why certain choices were made by the actors and how things came to be. Both books are goosebump-inducing, to be honest.

I did not have access to a lot of media growing up. Most of the access came after I started my undergrad at IIT Kanpur. The first time I came to know about Harry Potter was in college. I watched the entire catalogue during Antaragni (the college’s annual cultural fest) one year. It also means that I never read the books because by the time you are 20 or 21, you stop believing in the power of magic among other things. Friends would often ask things like, “Oh, do you know Premchand said this?” in some context. Sadly, I do not know because I never got to read Premchand’s works. I did not grow up reading Ruskin Bond’s stories or watching many Bollywood movies from the 90s. So, when someone said “K3G” in some context one time, I had no clue.

I’m not really sure how much I’ve missed out on. But at 27, it feels like there’s a whole new world out there for me. I’ve been reading books and essays concerning India’s place in the world, her relationship with her neighbors, the Northeastern region, and why some things are the way they are. Knowing Bengali proved useful too, in retrospect, because I could read about the latest election in Bangladesh on their local news site, right as the results rolled in (they took some time translating and publishing the English edition). I’m also reading Amartya Sen’s memoir in Bengali, although it feels like I might have to pull out my dictionary again for this. I hope to be able to read and write Hindi someday, and immerse myself in Hindi literature.

Over the years I have refined my taste in picking which books to read. I judge books by their covers and it has not disappointed me for the most part. Reflecting on the books I read is probably more helpful to me than anyone else because I can re-read the ones I liked, slowly this time. Some friends have suggested reading more fiction or reading about happier themes. I’m sure they meant well. I have added some of them to my list of books to read. Maybe I’ll get to some of them in the future. Until then, I read what I read.