In this novel the characters struggle with personal losses alongside the journey of a nation

Ushering in 2022 felt to me simultaneously hollow, ceremonial and momentous. Perhaps this was because it followed in the heels of a year that dragged its feet, moving at an obstinately slow pace while introducing historic changes that some of us didn’t notice till we looked back and took stock. A year of gradual transformation that refused to be rushed.

“Bittersweet is the passage of this year,” reads a Tricontinental newsletter. “There have been some immense victories and some catastrophic defeats.” In this vein, it seemed fitting that my first read of the year was Geeta Rahman at Championship Point – a book that performs a balancing act between victory and defeat, the historic and day-to-day, in a wobbly but intrepid way.

I will confess that my first reaction to being handed a book with a badminton racket on its cover was to be underwhelmed. It was a sport that I believed belonged to schooltime recesses, not to the epics. It is testament to Saskya Jain’s ability that halfway through the book I began imploring my friends to join me in the park’s court.

This might be some of the cause for dismissing the sport – how accessible it is to everyone, how affordable the…

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