Explaining a long break

It's hard to explain an eight-month-long hiatus without starting with an apology for both the break and not informing any interested readers about it. But as it happens, it was a fruitful eight months spent studying for a postgraduate degree in Politics and International Relations: a fascinating experience which has helped me learn more in eight months than I had in the last couple of years. I've been so busy reading non-fiction: academic journals, articles and books that the number of novels I've read during this time has been embarrassingly low (which explains my reluctance to blog). But the fiction I did read was wonderful (I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is without a doubt one of my all-time favourite books now, I adored Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) and the non-fiction was inspirational and thought-provoking (Michael Billig's Banal Nationalism, Ashis Nandy's The Romance of the State, Srirupa Roy's Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism, among others).

My areas of interest would have been very obvious to anybody who has read my blog: Indian history (especially the colonial Raj and Partition), politics and diplomacy. I've been focusing on these very topics during my studies and it has been a wonderful learning experience that has lead to a passion for understanding postcolonialism, nationalism, gender in politics and foreign policy and the annoying habit of trying to slip in the word 'subaltern' as much as I can (as you can see..).

I will be busy with my thesis/dissertation for the next couple of months and therefore, I cannot promise to be back to blogging as usual. But I do hope to share what I'm reading (and my thoughts about it) in the coming weeks/months, possibly in a new blog (Wordpress? Tumblr?).

Thank you to those who messaged me/left comments saying they missed my blog posts and asking me if I was alright. It was touching to know that people enjoyed reading my blog so much. I hope all my favourite readers and  bloggers have been doing great. I certainly missed reading the classics and genres I so adore and blogging about it, but I'm very thankful for everything I have been learning during this break.

Edited this post to add that I have just updated my list of India-related book recommendations with the best books I have been reading recently. Do check it out (and feel free to leave any suggestions you have)!