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Desires, Dreams and Powers is a fascinating saga of the life and times of Tathagata Roy. Not many people may have traipsed into so many fields of life as Roy has. He has been a civil engineer, an encyclopaedic, a university teacher, a researcher, a contract lawyer, a politician, an author in two languages, an intrepid traveller and, lately, a history buff.

By writing about his times than his life, Roy covers truly eventful eight decades of a nation in transition, during which British rule transmogrified into the partitions of India and Bengal, the world around him transformed from writing with a quill pen to taming the personal computer and toying with AI, and politics from optimism to Naxalism to hope. His native West Bengal, the crucible of left ideology, finally exorcised the ghost of Marxism by overthrowing the Left Front united in 2011 after 34 years of unbroken communist rule. Through it all, he pranced into high school, segued into engineering college, got his first job with the Indian railways, taught at Jadavpur University, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and capped it all up by becoming the governor of three north-eastern states of India.

The book is as much about the trajectory of a nation on the move as it is about Roy’s life. The parallel is unmissable.

The word ‘Bangaliyana’ roughly means ‘the Bengali way of life’. Bangaliyana, the book, is a delightful look at the author’s experience of life through his doodles and cartoons. Each page is infused with the vibrant spirit of Bengali culture, cuisine, and language from the author’spoint of view.

Being a probashi Bengali, the author straddles the ‘native’ and the ‘cosmopolitan’ effortlessly and shares a unique perspective of the intersection by blending personal anecdotes with humour. The heart of the book beats with humour because of a delightful medley of doodles and cartoons. Over the span of the last decade, the author, a self-taught cartoonist, dedicated most of his weekends cartooning. Among numerous cartoons he created during this period, his exploration of Bengalis and Bangaliyana filled one of his sketchbooks up to the brim. It was within those pages that the seed of inspiration for this book took roots.

The book defies being pigeonholed into a single genre. It is part memoir and part short story/humour. While everyday situations have provided a rich repository of ideas for the sketches, the book also captures moments of nostalgia from the author’s growing-up years. It allowed him to dig deep into his memory bank to fish out stories that most probashis will instantly relate to. Bangaliyana is not a critique of Bangla or Bengali culture but a tribute to the spirit of a true-blue Bengali. Whether you are a probashi or simply curious about the Bengali way of life, this book promises a heartfelt laugh.

The Collector’s Mother is a story of grit and perseverance. An ‘unwanted’ woman from an underprivileged background is attacked and, along with her husband, dragged on the village road and humiliated, and the family’s land grabbed by a local land mafia. In the godforsaken village deep into the hinterland, such excesses are not uncommon, but her steely resolve makes her stand out. How she weathers through such soul-sapping encounters to beat all odds and inspires his son to become a collector is at the heart of this extraordinary story set against the backdrop of abject caste oppression, absence of rule of law, persistent traditional power structure, pitiable education system, food insecurity, drought, famine, lack of health care and communication, hatred and domination by fellow villagers.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, Dr Bhargava, the director general of Indian Council of Medical Research, assembles a crack team of India’s most brilliant minds, including Dr Nivedita Gupta, Dr Priya Abraham and Dr Pragya Yadav. Together they mount a mission to save humanity from the unseen enemy. The challenges they face are daunting. They must navigate the treacherous waters of international diplomacy and deal with excessive bureaucratic control. Often enough, they find themselves battling against time and misinformation fuelled by fake news. Along the way, they are forced into moral dilemmas to make life-ordeath decisions that affect the nation and its people. As they work tirelessly to develop and distribute a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus that threatened to ravage India, they face opposition from foreign interests and intense scrutiny from the media. The Vaccine War is an inspiring tale of scientific ingenuity, perseverance and the triumph of the human spirit. It celebrates the heroes who fought relentlessly behind the scenes to protect their nation and offers a poignant reminder that unity and science can overcome even the most formidable challenges.