Book Review: Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘The Ashes Are Warm’ Is A Deeply Personal Exploration of Truth and Presence

Sometimes, a book does more than introduce you to a person—it introduces you to an entirely new way of looking at life. The Ashes Are Warm by Mahesh Bhatt and Sunita Pant Bansal did exactly that for me.

Mahesh Bhatt entrusted his private journals to Sunita Pant Bansal. It appears that he gave her a deeply personal archive of thoughts captured in life's most turbulent moments.

Based on diary entries penned in anger, vulnerability, grief and self-doubt, The Ashes Are Warm is less a memoir than an intimate chronicle of survival. It traces a journey through emotional upheaval, stripping away layers of illusion and self-deception.

Like many readers, I had heard of U.G. Krishnamurti before. I had come across a few of his quotes and knew of his reputation as an unconventional thinker who challenged established ideas about spirituality and self-realisation. Yet none of that prepared me for the experience of reading this book. And that’s what stayed with me. The storytelling.

This book is about presence. About conversations. About what happens when two people sit together with absolutely no need to convince one another of anything.

Sunita Pant Bansal has written this with remarkable restraint. There is no attempt to dramatise the moments or make them bigger than they are. She simply lets them unfold. The writing is quiet, intimate and deeply human. Before you know it, you stop feeling like you’re reading a book. You feel like you’ve been allowed into a room where Mahesh Bhatt and U.G. Krishnamurti are talking, and you’ve quietly found a corner to sit in. You listen. Sometimes you understand everything. Sometimes you don’t. And somehow, both feel perfectly okay.

There is a striking honesty running through these exchanges. There is no performance, no carefully packaged wisdom and no attempt to arrive at neat conclusions. Instead, the conversations embrace uncertainty, contradiction and discomfort. In an age where everyone seems eager to offer definitive answers, this willingness to remain with the questions feels refreshingly authentic.

Equally compelling is Mahesh Bhatt's openness. He does not position himself as someone seeking to extract profound insights through clever questioning.

He is searching, doubting and confronting his own uncertainties in real time. His vulnerability transforms these dialogues into deeply personal encounters rather than abstract philosophical discussions.

The language deserves special mention as well. It is simple, free from unnecessary ornamentation or intellectual display. The prose never competes with the ideas; instead, it quietly steps aside, allowing the conversations to breathe and resonate.

It is this simplicity that gives the book its greatest strength, making The Ashes Are Warm not just a book to be read, but an experience to be absorbed.

Book: The Ashes Are Warm

Author: Mahesh Bhatt and Sunita Pant Bansal

Publisher: Rupa

Pages: 384

Price: Rs 495

Published on: Sunday, July 26, 2026, 07:20 AM IST