Memes for Mummyji By Santosh Desai

Selfies, WhatsApp forwards, and memes—Santosh Desai maps how smartphones have taken over our daily lives.

From selfies and what they mean to the travails of modern love and the new vocabulary of politics, Santosh Desai returns to chronicle the invisible revolutions of Indian life with his signature wit and insight. In Memes for Mummyji, he explores how the mobile phone – now as common as the pressure cooker – has quietly reshaped everything: how we shop, flirt, pray, protest, and parent.

This is not a book about technology. It’s about us. Our habits, our contradictions, our new-found freedoms – and the deep cultural software that still runs underneath. Warm, keenly perceptive and deeply human, this book, with essays drawn from over a decade of observation, is a love letter to the everyday theatre of Indian life in the digital age.

A portrait of India in mid-sentence – caught between tradition and transformation, noise and nuance.

From selfies and what they mean to the travails of modern love and the new vocabulary of politics, Santosh Desai returns to chronicle the invisible revolutions of Indian life with his signature wit and insight. In Memes for Mummyji, he explores how the mobile phone – now as common as the pressure cooker – has quietly reshaped everything: how we shop, flirt, pray, protest, and parent.

This is not a book about technology. It’s about us. Our habits, our contradictions, our new-found freedoms – and the deep cultural software that still runs underneath. Warm, keenly perceptive and deeply human, this book, with essays drawn from over a decade of observation, is a love letter to the everyday theatre of Indian life in the digital age.

Advance Praise for Memes for Mummyji

‘Santosh Desai provides penetrating insights into our sense of self. His writing is accessible but deep. He has turned the observation of society into a gentle art form. With great subtlety he uncovers the ways in which the new information order and social forces are transforming us.’ – Pratap Bhanu Mehta, academic and public intellectual

‘Santosh Desai is the prose laureate of India’s hybrid modernity. No one has explained the everyday transitions in desi life with such empathy, lucidity and grace. Memes for Mummyji is required reading for anyone trying to get a handle on Hindustan.’ – Mukul Kesavan, writer

‘Santosh Desai’s book is a triumph of opinion journalism; he is one of the very few columnists who are interesting and memorable. He gets into the mind of India and tells us clearly what he sees.’

– Manu Joseph, author of Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us

‘Brilliant and unparalleled sensemaking of the chaos and contradictions when new and old India collide! The profound insights and humorous observations make this book a delightful and valuable read.’ – Rama Bijapurkar, author of We Are Like That Only and Lilliput Land

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Santosh Desai says, ‘The smartphone has changed India in ways big and small, visible and invisible. Memes for Mummyji is my attempt to make sense of the shifts reshaping us as a society. It isn’t a book about technology, but about how technology is quietly reshaping our everyday live.’

Udayan Mitra, Executive Publisher, HarperCollins India says, ‘Have our smartphones made us what we are today? Or have they perhaps unmade us in some ways too? To make sense of the social and cultural moment we live in, there can be no better guide than Santosh Desai’s Memes for Mummyji. Witty, sharp and full of key insights, this is a book that reveals modern India in brilliant ways. We at HarperCollins are delighted to be able to bring this book to readers everywhere.’

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Santosh Desai, author of the book Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Everyday India and the columnist behind the long-running column ‘City City Bang Bang’ in The Times of India, is regarded as one of India’s leading social commentators. His work documents the changes India is going through, viewed from the lens of everyday life. In another life, he is one of India’s foremost brand thinkers, having spent over two decades in advertising and eighteen years in brand consulting. He is also a founder at Think9 Consumer Technologies, a company that helps early-stage start-ups to scale up. He is a graduate in economics and a management graduate from IIM-Ahmedabad.

Published by HarperCollins

Paperback |Non-Fiction|400 pp|INR 599

Releasing 27th November, 2025