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Essays
Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays I like/find interesting/are food for thought; I’ve tried to sort them as much as possible. The starred (*) ones are those I especially love
also quick note: some of these links, especially the ones that are from books/anthologies redirect you to libgen or scihub, and if that doesn’t work for you, do message me; I’d be happy to send them across!
Literature + Writing
Godot Comes to Sarajevo - Susan Sontag
The Strangeness of Grief - V. S. Naipaul*
Memories of V. S. Naipaul - Paul Theroux*
A Rainy Day with Ruskin Bond - Mayank Austen Soofi
How Albert Camus Faced History - Adam Gopnik
Listen, Bro - Jo Livingstone
Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel - Judith Thurman
Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be - Ryan Bloom
The Duke in His Domain - Truman Capote*
The Cult of Donna Tartt: Themes and Strategies in The Secret History - Ana Rita Catalão Guedes
Never Do That to a Book - Anne Fadiman*
Affecting Anger: Ideologies of Community Mobilisation in Early Hindi Novel - Rohan Chauhan*
Why I Write - George Orwell*
Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance - Carrie Jaurès Noland*
Art + Photography (+ Aesthetics)
Looking at War - Susan Sontag*
Love, sex, art, and death - Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz
Lyons, Szarkowski, and the Perception of Photography - Anne Wilkes Tucker
The Feminist Critique of Art History - Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews
In Plato’s Cave - Susan Sontag*
On reproduction of art (Chapter 1, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*
On nudity and women in art (Chapter 3, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*
Kalighat Paintings  - Sharmishtha Chaudhuri
Daydreams and Fragments: On How We Retrieve Images From the Past -  Maël Renouard
Arthur Rimbaud: the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Enid Rhodes Peschel
Cities
Tragic Fable of Mumbai Mills - Gyan Prakash
Whose Bandra is it? - Dustin Silgardo*
Timur’s Registan: noblest public square in the world? - Srinath Perur
The first Starbucks coffee shop, Seattle - Colin Marshall*
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s iconic railway station - Srinath Perur
From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective -  Andrew Harris
The Limits of “White Town” in Colonial Calcutta - Swati Chattopadhyay
The Metropolis and Mental Life - Georg Simmel
Colonial Policy and the Culture of Immigration: Citing the Social History of Varanasi - Vinod Kumar, Shiv Narayan
A Caribbean Creole Capital: Kingston, Jamaica - Coln G. Clarke (from Colonial Cities by Robert Ross, Gerard J. Telkamp
The Colonial City and the Post-Colonial World - G. A. de Bruijne
The Nowhere City - Amos Elon*
The Vertical Flâneur: Narratorial Tradecraft in the Colonial Metropolis - Paul K. Saint-Amour
Philosophy
The trolley problem problem - James Wilson
A Brief History of Death - Nir Baram
Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical - John Rawls*
Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation? - John E. Roemer
The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Scott Berinato*
The Pandemic and the Crisis of Faith - Makarand Paranjape
If God Is Dead, Your Time is Everything - James Wood
Giving Up on God - Ronald Inglehart
The Limits of Consensual Decision - Douglas Rae*
The Science of “Muddling Through” - Charles Lindblom*
History
The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Maria Dolan
The History of Loneliness - Jill Lepore*
From Tuskegee to Togo: the Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert*
Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - E. P. Thompson*
All By Myself - Martha Bailey*
The Geographical Pivot of History - H. J. Mackinder
The sea/ocean
Rim of Life - Manu Pillai
Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line - Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery
‘Piracy’, connectivity and seaborne power in the Middle Ages - Nikolas Jaspert (from The Sea in History)*
The Vikings and their age - Nils Blomkvist (from The Sea in History)*
Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States - Roxani Eleni Margariti
Phantom Peril in the Arctic - Robert David English, Morgan Grant Gardner*
Assorted ones on India
A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001 - Alexander Evans *
Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World - Gyan Prakash
Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain - Aditya Mukherjee
Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947 - Aparna Basu
The Epic Riddle of Dating Ramayana, Mahabharata - Sunaina Kumar*
Caste and Politics: Identity Over System - Dipankar Gupta
Our worldview is Delhi based*
Sports (you’ll have to excuse the fact that it’s only cricket but what can i say, i’m indian)
‘Massa Day Done:’ Cricket as a Catalyst for West Indian Independence: 1950-1962 - John Newman*
Playing for power? rugby, Afrikaner nationalism and masculinity in South Africa, c.1900–70 - Albert Grundlingh
When Cricket Was a Symbol, Not Just a Sport - Baz Dreisinger
Cricket, caste, community, colonialism: the politics of a great game - Ramachandra Guha*
Cricket and Politics in Colonial India - Ramchandra Guha
MS Dhoni: A quiet radical who did it his way*
Music
Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil - Samuel M. Araújo
Color, Music and Conflict: A Study of Aggression in Trinidad with Reference to the Role of Traditional Music - J. D. Elder
The 1975 - ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’ review - Dan Stubbs*
Life Without Live - Rob Sheffield*
How Britney Spears Changed Pop - Rob Sheffield
Concert for Bangladesh
From “Help!” to “Helping out a Friend”: Imagining South Asia through the Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh - Samantha Christiansen 
Gender
Clothing Behaviour as Non-verbal Resistance - Diana Crane
The Normalisation of Queer Theory - David M. Halperin
Menstruation and the Holocaust - Jo-Ann Owusu*
Women’s Suffrage the Democratic Peace - Allan Dafoe
Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines of Gender - Catherine Zuckerman*
Women’s health concerns are dismissed more, studied less - Zoanne Clack
Food
How Food-Obsessed Millennials Shape the Future of Food - Rachel A. Becker (as a non-food obsessed somewhat-millennial, this was interesting)
Colonialism’s effect on how and what we eat - Coral Lee
Tracing Europe’s influence on India’s culinary heritage - Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
Chicken Kiev: the world’s most contested ready-meal*
From Russia with mayo: the story of a Soviet super-salad*
The Politics of Pancakes - Taylor Aucoin*
How Doughnuts Fuelled the American Dream*
Pav from the Nau
A Short History of the Vada Pav - Saira Menezes
Fantasy (mostly just harry potter and lord of the rings)
Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, and Power (from The Politics of Harry Potter)
Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights (from The Politics of Harry Potter)*
Good and Evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lengendarium - Jyrki Korpua
The Fairy Story: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - Colin Duriez (from Tree of Tales)*
Tolkien’s Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil: Why The Lord of the Rings Is Not Manichean - Ralph Wood (from Tree of Tales)*
Travel
The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism
Chronicles of a Writer’s 1950s Road Trip Across France - Kathleen Phelan
On the Early Women Pioneers of Trail Hiking - Gwenyth Loose
On the Mythologies of the Himalaya Mountains - Ed Douglas*
More random assorted ones
The cosmos from the wheelchair (The Economist obituaries)*
In El Salvador - Joan Didion
Scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain - Yudhijit Banerjee
Notes on Nationalism - George Orwell
Politics and the English Language - George Orwell*
What Do the Humanities Do in a Crisis? - Agnes Callard*
The Politics of Joker - Kyle Smith
Sushant Singh Rajput: The outsider - Uday Bhatia*
Credibility and Mystery - John Berger
happy reading :)
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When I was nine years old, the world, too, was nine years old. At least, there was no difference between us, no opposition, no distance. We just tumbled around from sunrise to sunset, earth and body as alike as two pennies. And there was never a harsh word between us, for the simple reason that there were no words at all between us; we never uttered a word to each other, the world and I. Our relationship was beyond language—and thus also beyond time. We were one big space (which was, of course, a very small space).
Inger Christensen, The Condition of Secrecy
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A Clockwork Orange (1971)
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“There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
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Reblog with your sign in the tags
aries: the definition of a fuckboy but they actually have a soul. literally don’t give two shits about the haters and are some of the most loyal friends i’ve ever encountered. have very sudden growth periods. super dedicated to anything they put their mind to. ALSO OH MY GOD SO GOOD WITH THE TONGUE 
taurus: very eccentric, don’t really know how to deal with emotions. get flustered easily but it’s kinda cute. dreamy demeanor. will ignore the hell out of u if u fuck them over. are lowkey terrified of everything but will probs never admit that as they have some weird element of ego tied into that. 
gemini: really chill people when u get to know them but will scare the shit out of u for like six years if u don’t approach them. do not fucking piss them off as they will butcher yo ass with their tongue and hang u up for the rest of the world to see. probably has daddy issues. writers. really physically attractive and everybody is intimidated as fuck by it. dumb as hell in terms of love and will flirt with you incessantly. REALLY FUCKIN GOOD WITH THEIR HANDS LIKE DAMN. 
cancer: big hearts. fuckin adorable little water signs that are likely drowning in a puddle of their own tears. do not know how to fucking flirt to save their lives. their laughs are kooky as hell and i love it. probably smoke weed. u either love ‘em or want to kill them or are in some poorly balanced inbetween.
leo: okay y’all needa settle down a bit. fragile fuckin egos if i’ve ever seen ‘em and react hardcore if u piss them off. pretty over the top with everything. but damn, are some of the most hopelessly romantic motherfuckers i’ve met. will treat you like a fucking god(dess) if u let them. not super good at social cues tbh. good friends to have if u need to be validated. need quality time. 
virgo: y’all are lowkey hoes and give no fucks about it and it’s fucking great omfg. despite that, they maintain an endearing innocence and can be childish af when things don’t go their way but will love u until the end of time. great taste in music. super fucking smart but don’t show it off too often. 
libra: jesus christ okay i love u guys. super understanding and will always try to see all sides of a situation. probably have been through a lot. aren’t afraid to call u on ur shit and are lowkey emotional shawtys that are still trying to find themselves. make really wonderful parents. get crazy excited over little shit and it’s fucking adorable. 
scorpio: don’t fuck with these hoes unless u know urself first. will expose the parts of urself that u didn’t want to see. super gnarly in fights and will love u until the end of time. pretty standoffish and need time alone when emotionally unstable. keep themselves in amazing shape. are the loneliest fucks i know; be kind to them always. are probably in great shape (physically.)
sagittarius: craziest mofos out there. abandon all emotions before going into a situation and can be super impulsive. funny as fuck and always seem to be on another level. push themselves to the limit and usually forget to give themselves a break. ambitious and can get shit done when they need to. 
capricorn: talk about a ride or die. y’all are loyal to the grave and are incredible friends. until u get fucked over. will probably make ur enemies’ life a living hell, sometimes over-the-top about it. can be v athletic. good writers/artists. really interested in spirituality and the ethereal realms. u guys know what to do in bed and flirt hard af. also so fucking funny oh my god. 
aquarius: amazing friends. probably hate u. easily excitable. space cadets 4 life. rly good with animals and love food but probably restrict their eating habits in one way or another. a paradox in that they are fucking driven as hell to get shit done but give zero fucks at the same time. lowkey kinky af. want to kiss everyone. 
pisces: emotional shawtys through and through. physically attractive as hell. not good at romantic relationships. won’t forget about u for a million years. keep their friends close but will push u the fuck away if they get scared. insecure and just want u to stick around.
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“Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
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