Bookaholic

Some love stories begin with a confession. Some begin with a smile. And some begin with silence. Shoojit Sircara’s October is one such story. Released in 2018, October stars Varun Dhawan as Dan, a young hotel-management trainee, and Banita Sandhu as Shiuli, his fellow trainee. But calling the film simply a romantic movie would be an injustice to what it really explores. Dan and Shiuli are not presented as a conventional romantic couple. Their relationship is uncertain, incomplete and difficult to define. When an unexpected tragedy changes Shiulia’s life, Dan begins to remain by her side. What follows is not a dramatic romance filled with grand declarations. Instead, it is a quiet exploration of care, attachment, grief and unconditional affection. And perhaps that is what makes October so different. In a world where love is often represented through dramatic gestures, expensive gifts and beautiful words, the film asks us to consider another form of love”the kind that exists with...

Some of the most important conversations in our lives are the ones we never have. We carry words inside us for years-an apology that was never offered, a feeling that was never expressed, a question that remained unanswered, or a truth we were too afraid to speak. Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say explores this quiet territory of human relationships and reminds us that silence is not always empty. Sometimes, silence carries an entire lifetime. At the heart of the novel is the idea that people are often more complicated than the versions of themselves that others see. We may appear strong while carrying grief, appear happy while struggling with loneliness, or appear distant simply because we do not know how to express what we feel. What makes such stories powerful is their familiarity. We may not share the characters’ exact experiences, but we recognise their emotions. We have all, at some point, chosen silence instead of speaking. Sometimes we remain silent because we fear rej...