Book Review: Invictus by Nidhie Sharma

Namrata reviews Invictus by Nidhie Sharma (Pan Macmillan, 2021) and emphasizes how this book is a reminder of a courage zone that lies beyond our comfort zone where we can sometimes surprise ourselves too with the things we can do.

ISBN ‏: ‎ 9789390742073
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pan Macmillan
Release date: 10th August 2021
Price: INR 399/-

Six children One treacherous jungle A gripping story of resilience With a blurb that starts like this, Nidhie Sharma has surely got the readers hooked from the first glance itself. Add to it the fact that it is a true story, one based on a real-life incident faced by the author as a teenager. The strength and determination visible in this story are the ones that leave you with goosebumps long after you have finished the book.

Nidhie Sharma, the author, is an inspiration in real life too. A writer-director based in Mumbai, her debut work ‘Dancing with the demons’, the first boxing fiction drama in India is notable and very well-known. Bringing together her personal experiences of growing up in an Armed Forces environment and travelling across the world, she mixes it liberally with her love for adventure sports in this story. The result is an edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting adventure novel that you cannot put down without knowing what happened next.

Read the full review on Kitaab.

Books on Cinema

For a long time, cinema was a world I wasn’t allowed to enter. I grew up in a home where movies were banned. No television, no glimpses of silver screens, and no songs echoing from old classics. For nearly a decade, cinema was a forbidden word like a secret behind a closed door. And yet, like all things that carry truth and longing, it found its way to me. Stories have a way of finding you, slipping through cracks, whispered between pages, caught in melodies. Sometimes through the corners of borrowed books, sometimes through whispered summaries from classmates, sometimes just through the magnetic pull of posters and songs I wasn’t supposed to hear.

Movie Review: If by Tathagata Ghosh – A Tender Portrait of Love, Loss, and Possibility

If , a 26-minute short film by acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Tathagata Ghosh, is a sensitive, evocative piece of storytelling that lingers long after the credits roll. Set against the everyday rhythm of life in Kolkata, the film delicately unpacks the story of a lesbian couple torn apart by the weight of societal expectations and dares to imagine a different future, one where a mother's love might just change everything. What struck me first was the film’s raw, grounded realism. The characters feel like people we know, middle-class families navigating a complex world with quiet resilience. The world of If is filled with silences, glances, and stills, rather than heavy dialogue. Ghosh masterfully uses these moments to speak volumes, allowing viewers to sit with discomfort, interpret the unspoken, and feel deeply.

Book Review: The Story of Eve: Selected Poems by Zehra Nigah

Few voices in Urdu poetry have carried the weight of history, resistance, and deep personal introspection quite like Zehra Nigah. One of the first women to break into the traditionally male-dominated world of Urdu poetry, Nigah’s work stands as a testament to the power of words to illuminate, question, and challenge. The Story of Eve: Selected Poems, translated by Rakshanda Jalil, brings together some of her most powerful nazms and ghazals, showcasing both her literary elegance and her unflinching gaze at the human condition, particularly through the lens of gender, social injustice, and political turmoil.

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