Here's a 3 hr podcast on my journey as a writer, translator and publisher! Technology will always remain my forte, but my 18 yrs of literary journey surprised many, including me. It was nice to rewind how it all panned out!

Sachin Tendulkar has finally spoken on the student protests, and I had to read his note twice: once as a fan and once as an editor. The fan was disappointed, but the editor realised that this was a textbook specimen of the kind of writing that George Orwell warned about in his essay “Politics and the English Language”. The essay was written in 1946, but it might well have been written yesterday about this very statement. Orwell’s point was that when people want to hide something, they stop using plain words and reach instead for the passive voice, for fog, for phrases that sound like they mean something while meaning nothing at all. Consider the line, where students are disappointed that “their hard work hasn’t been rewarded”. Rewarded by whom, and denied by whom? There was a paper leak, which means somebody leaked it, some institution failed to prevent it, and an official presides over that institution. Yet none of them appears in the statement, and neither does the leak itself. A crime with identifiable custodians has been turned into something that simply happened to lakhs of children through nobody's fault. Then comes the list of those who must set things right: parents, teachers, friends, relatives, schools and administrators. If you read that list again slowly, you will notice it covers everyone in India except the people the students are actually protesting against, which is to say the NTA, the education ministry and the government. When everyone is responsible, nobody is, and that is not an accident of drafting. It was engineered to deflect blame. There is also a quiet sentence buried in the middle. “A society which prioritises outcomes over effort will seek shortcuts over meritocracy” is a line about those who take shortcuts, meaning the cheat. So a note on protests around paper leaks ends up gently lecturing the leaked-upon about honesty. His father’s lovely lesson—that failure is okay but cheating is not—is again aimed squarely at individuals, while the scandal and protests right now are about institutions that failed them. The rest of the statement is what Orwell called ready-made strips of words, glued together. Full of dreams and energy, fuel to our success, safeguard their aspirations. Nobody can disagree with any of it, which is precisely the point, for this is prose engineered so that no one in power will find a single sentence to object to. What an actual position would have looked like is a single sentence in the active voice: The government must find and punish those who leaked the paper, and fix the system that allowed it. He wrote 160+ words to avoid writing that one. Here’s Orwell’s full essay for those interested: bioinfo.uib.es/~joemiro/RecE…

So happy to announce my debut novel… after publishing over 50 non-fiction books, this novel feels special. Expected out by October this year from @WestlandBooks

Volga’sOn the Banks of the Pampa, translated with sensitivity and clarity from the original Telugu by Purnima Tammireddy, is a deceptively slender novel that invites us into a fierce, meditative, and deeply political conversation. trib.al/Bld7fze

A message to all our esteemed patrons and well wishers from Krishna.

Different mediums, same grandeur! The epic #Ramayana continues to captivate across generations—whether on the big screen or within the pages of powerful retellings that bring fresh perspectives to a timeless story. As the big screen gears up to bring this story to life, here are some stellar books that revisit the Ramayana in ways both classic and compelling. @authoramish @cdivakaruni @dushyanthsridar @itsanandneel #Volga #TVijayKumar #CVijayasree @tpurnima #READWithHarperCollins #RamayanaTeaser #EpicRetellings #MustReads

A review of "Bandaged Moments" by Professor Sanjukta Dasgupta. @nabsdg @niyogibooks differenttruths.com/focus-un…

This International Women’s Day, we bring you a stellar collection of books that celebrate women’s voices and journeys of resilience. From narratives of courage to moving accounts of love and identity, these compelling books across genres honour the many stories women carry and create. Discover the full list on @harperbroadcast: harpercollins.co.in/editors-… @safeenahusain @educate_girls #Volga @tpurnima #EnakshiSengupta #RaniNeutill @EnrouteH #ManasiChaudhari #NimnaVijay #HarithaCK @mehakjamal @KanzaJaved @dpanjana #READWithHarperCollins #InternationalWomensDay #WomensDay #WomensDayReads

"The fight against feudalism and women’s oppression went hand in hand. The emphasis on women’s issues was much more prominent in the past than it is today." scroll.in/article/1089151/fr… An excerpt from ‘Mallu Swarajyam: The Fire of Defiance’, by S Katyayini, Vimala Morthala, and Uma Chakravarti, translated from the Telugu by Purnima Tammireddy. @ZubaanBooks @SouthSideBooksH #bookexcerpt

109. The Fire of Defiance by Mallu Swarajyam, as told to Uma Chakravarti, Vimala Morthala & S. Katyayini, translated by @tpurnima (Telugu) @ZubaanBooks zubaanbooks.com/shop/the-fir…

If 2025 had a reading pattern, it looked like this: finish, recommend, think about it, read again. Some stories simply refused to fade once the last page was turned. They stayed in conversations, resurfaced in memory, and found their way back into readers' hands. Here is our wrap of the fiction readers could not quite move on from! Discover the full list on @harperbroadcast: harpercollins.co.in/blog/edi… #RuchirJoshi #JeetThayil @chetan_bhagat @agarwal_stuti @authoramish #ShreyasRajagopal @rahulpandita @aninditaghose #SanjenaSathian @KanzaJaved #MMukundan #GitaKrishnakutty #AmitabhaBagchi #JissaJose @vivarthaka @ashwinsanghi #MiniKrishnan #Volga @tpurnima #VenkataraghavanSrinivasan #AnanyaBrokerParekh @dpanjana #MohammadNazimUddin #VRamaswamy @akhilpdharmajan #HarithaCK #Perundevi @writetolopa #ManjulBajaj @alkajoshi #VibhaBatra @menakaraman #SukumarRay #CharbakDipta @SatyarthNayak #NimnaVijay #PriyankaPandyaBhatt @debasmita_d @Manik_M_Jolly @stutichangle #READWithHarperCollins #FictionBooks #2025Wrapped #MustReadFiction

@tpurnima మీ ఆటొగ్రాఫ్ ఈ పుస్తకం మీద అందుకోవడం వీలు చిక్కలేదు

Review of Bandaged Momebts in @TheStatesmanLtd @nabsdg @tpurnima @ccatPanda #bandagedmoments #mentalhealth #translation #shortstories #womenswriting epaper.thestatesman.com/c/78…

The Delhi launch of our co-edited volume of translated short stories. #bandagedmoments #translation #womenswriting #mentalhealth #shortstories @nabsdg @tpurnima

New Book Alert: Mallu Swarajyam 's biography in my translation. Up for pre-order. @SouthSideBooksH @ZubaanBooks

Every time I hear Satish Shah's name, I just think of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron's D'mello. One of his best performances, especially as a dead man! Thank you for making us laugh, sir. We will surely miss you. #SatishShah

#BookReview: "Bandaged Moments" is a powerful and thought-provoking collection of 26 short stories by women writers from across India, translated from 17 Indian languages. storizen.com/book-reviews/ba… @PeriSwapna @niyogibooks

From my collaboration with @JonAcuff, some thoughts on destroying the illusion of perfection.

There is a quiet ache no one talks about. The ache of outgrowing a life you worked so hard to build. The career. The relationship. The routines that once made sense. Now they just feel… empty. As we age, we evolve. Our priorities change. The shiny things you once chased no longer interests the person you’ve become. This is life. It happens. This confusion, this mental fog, this inner struggle is your soul whispering, “Something else is waiting.” So don’t rush to fix it. It's your moment of 'no pressure, no diamonds'. Let yourself be blurry for a while. Because maybe being lost is the beginning of finally doing it right.

We’re thrilled to be nominated on this longlist for Atta Galatta Book Prize 2025 longlist — alongside some truly incredible titles that move, challenge, and inspire! Fiction On the Banks of Pampa by Volga The Elsewhereans by Jeet Thayil Non-Fiction Shattered Lands by @SamDalrymple123 The Searches by @vauhinivara A wonderful celebration of storytelling and thought — congratulations to all the long-listed authors! #READWithHarperCollins #AGLFBookPrize2025 #AttaGalatta #IndianAuthors #BookAwards #LiteraryLonglist

Thank you @AttaGalatta ! Many thanks to Volga garu and @HarperCollinsIN for having me as part of this journey. Congratulations to fellow writers and translators on the longlist.