Dear Friends,
Senior journalist Soma Basu from The Hindu recently asked me to name a few books I was reading in these COVID times. Here is a brief mention including works by Hoshang Merchant and Manjul Bajaj.
Please see my selection here …
Archive for August, 2020
Dear Friends,
thank you for all your wishes for the translation of ‘Sepia Leaves’. As I said in that post, every few weeks there is a new friend reading, talking, commenting, sharing about the book. I feel very satisfied that the book continues to resonate with us.
Here is a new blog I accidentally tumbled upon. Reader Smitha Murthy says, ‘Simple prose, haunting images, and relentless in its portrayal of the author’s beautiful family, ‘Sepia Leaves,’ reminded me of all the sepia-tainted memories of my life. The people, shadows, ghosts, thoughts, scars, words – all brought up in vivid technicolor. This book isn’t perfect. Just like us. And that’s perfect.’
Thank you Smitha.
Please read here …
Tags: Mental Health, Smitha Murthy
Dear Friends,
you are aware about my interest in mental health and concern for caregivers. On August 22, at 4 pm, Supreet Dhiman has very kindly invited me to make opening remarks at a meeting of caregivers. It will be a safe space.
In the conversation titled Pyramid of Mental Health – A Caregiver’s Perspective, for a change, there will be no hard line between the speaker and the audience. All of us will speak and all of us will listen.
Since the session was in time and audience shared vulnerabilities, we did not record the session. Here is wishing we have more such sessions. We need them.
Tags: Caregiving, EndIncest, Mental Health, Safe Space
Dear Friends,
Humbled that we keep talking about Sepia Leaves 13 years after it first appeared. Also, A Book of Light in which the updated Epilogue to Sepia Leaves appeared. In fact, humbled we continue to talk about all these books.
Thank you!
Please read here …
Tags: A Book of Light, Mental Health, Sepia Leaves
Dear Friends,
I was honoured that on August 15, 8.30 pm IST, I was invited to a panel discussion with Harinder Singh and Tridivesh Singh Maini. This is upon invite from Sikhri – Sikh Research Institute – a premier Sikh organisation in the US.
73 years ago, two nation-states were carved by the British mapmaking: Hindustan and Pakistan. The historical Sikh Homeland in The Panjab was divided by the Radcliffe line. In now truncated Indian Panjab, a proportion of the Sikhs led many campaigns to fight for economic, political, state, human, and religious rights. What’s next to secure the Sikh aspirations and the Panjab’s autonomy?
Please listen to the conversation here …
Tags: Harinder Singh, Panjab, SikhRI, Sikhs, Tridivesh Singh Maini
Dear Friends,
Manjul Bajaj and my career have almost run parallel. My first book Sepia Leaves came out very close to her debut Come Before Evening Falls. We were both nominated for the Hindu Prize for Fiction in 2013, she for Another Man’s Wife and I for Roll of Honour.
Last year, when I went to my publisher’s office in August to finalise the cover page of PANJAB: Journeys Through fault Lines, I saw Manjul’s book In Search of Heer ready for publication. In between, Manjul has been prolific and written children’s books too. It has taken me a few months to review In Search of Heer, but here it is.
Please read the review here …
Tags: Heer, Manjul Bajaj, Medieval Panjjab, Westland
29
Aug
Amazon Author Interview
Dear Friends,
Here is a short author interview by Amazon to go with the recent essay available as an e-Book: Bravado to Fear to Abandonment: Mental Health and the COVID-19 Lockdown
It tells us the reason I wrote the piece: ‘As someone who was clinically diagnosed with depression twice, Mr. Sandhu is no stranger to mental illness. He has also been a caregiver to mental illness sufferers, and that has prompted him to center his next story on the mental health aspects of the current pandemic.’
Please read more here …
Tags: Abandonment, Bravado, COVID-19, fear, India, lockdown, Mental Health
Dear Friends,
A few months back when the longest lockdown in the world was imposed on India, it disrupted all our lives, jobs, social securities. While the economic devastation would be a sphere many would look at from various angles, I was interested in how the lockdown affected our mindscapes. What does the lockdown augur for us as individuals and as a society? Here is my essay as an e-Book available on Kindle for India users. It will be available for foreign readers in the coming weeks.
Bravado to Fear to Abandonment: Mental Health and the COVID-19 Lockdown
Tags: Abandonment, Bravado, COVID-19, fear, India, lockdown, Mental Health