Fame and fall | Sex, crime and bestsellers

In the decade between 2005 and 2015, India's public conversation was shaped not only by elections, growth curves and street protests but also by books that flew off the shelves, crimes that unsettled middle-class living rooms, and once-revered figures who fell from grace. These years reflected a society in churn, aspirational yet anxious, globally visible yet inwardly conflicted. Cultural success and moral collapse coexisted in the same headlines