To Hell and Back by Barkha Dutt

The lockdown of the first wave caused unprecedented devastation. And in 2022, Omicron has trigged a new challenge. When India’s lockdown was first announced in March 2020, acclaimed journalist Barkha Dutt started an extraordinary series of road trips, recording the human story of the pandemic, one which she continues even today as we wrestle with the virus’s latest avatar.

In this book, she tells India’s pandemic story through the stories of the people she covered – the migrant workers and politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats, doctors and nurses, factory workers and farmers, teachers and students, husbands and wives, parents and children. And through these accounts, she draws a startling picture not just of our plague years but the very nature of our country with its deep-rooted inequalities across class, caste and gender. Moving, gripping and vivid, To Hell and Back is an outstanding work by one of our foremost journalists, working at the height of her powers.

• About the Author

About Sprightly Spirit

“I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares more is none”. And all, may be. It may be the vigor. Or the spirit. Or the courage to avoid being “politically correct” or bent. And, ban all averse with immaculate overture of graciously fathomable words firm in views. Subtle. Justifying the undying conscience. Values. Knowledge. And, dares to stay true. True to own. True to the world. And, to the words. With a dream in eyes it exists. In you. In me. In all. The sprite that never shies away. The spirit that never dies!