Some people see living as traversing a land, they need a map and follow milestones with a definite destination in mind, knowing where they must be at all times, whether they are ahead or behind, knowing where and when they halt and when to keep going. Then there are those for whom it is sailing the sea with only a sense of a destination. They adapt to the changing winds and chart a path on water looking at the stars.

Death is a constant in Kerouac’s Big Sur, omnipresent, standing on our every turn. Religion is a constant. Drunkenness is a constant. Mother is a constant. The white line splitting the road is a constant. The road is a constant. Friends and friendships though, change. Even the ice cold Billie with her blond hair and blue eyes gets angry and cold, and you wonder what took her so long. Of course, the immediate response to finishing the Big Sur, or any of Kerouac’s novels, his endless Legends of Duoloz series, is an urge to write in his manner.

On Reading the Left Hand of Darkness Light is the Left Hand of Darkness In the edition that I read (from 2019, fifty years after this book was first published) there is an introduction, an author’s note and an afterword to go alongside the story. I had purchased it in November last year, read it in March this year, and managed to read the introduction, the note and the afterword only today in June of 2022.

Delhi Mostly Harmless Elizabeth Chatterjee’s book on her time in Delhi is charming. I picked up the book on the way back home to Bombay from Pune in February this year. I was about to start the second season of Bombay Daak, and it was an instinctive purchase; I hoped to find some inspiration on writing about a city, or gather a different perspective on how to look at one.