Indian artists & John Company

{ MANJULA NARAYAN } Editor, Books

In earlier years, I always promised myself that I’d keep copious notes on every book I read. Never happened. However, tracking my reading has become easier since I began hosting the weekly Books & Authors podcast on www.htsmartcast.com. The 49 episodes I did this year featured conversations with authors whose work revealed fresh insights on everything from life along the banks of the Brahmaputra to the lives of Zohra Sehgal and Guru Dutt. But if I have to choose one favourite, it would be Indian Botanical Art; An Illustrated History by Martyn Rix. A work of great erudition that is also a visual treat, it takes you into the world of East India Company surgeons, who were also enthusiastic botanists, and the Indian artists who painted the plants they collected. I flip through this book often for inspiration and to be calmed by the delicacy of the work of masters like Zain al Din, Bhawani Das and Ram Das. I tend to read to improve my understanding of the world and sometimes forget that fiction does that too. This year, Ruth Vanita’s translation of Mahadevi Varma’s wonderful My Family, about the author’s relationships with the many animals who shared her life, has my heart. Elon Musk can have his space travel; someone please invent an inter-species communication device. I wish I could read My Family to my dogs. I’m sure they’d love it as much as I did. Really, I could write a book on the things I’ve learnt from the ones I read this year. That’s a project for 2022 perhaps.