HT reviewer Arunima Mazumdar picks her favourite read of 2025

In 2025, I loved reading a picture book called This Land is My School, written by Yogesh Maitreya and illustrated by Bhargavi Rudraraju. It is a short biography of Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade, who is known as the Rice Man of India. Born in 1939 into a Mahar family, he was a farmer and plant breeder who conducted experiments and developed new varieties of rice.

He could not study much due to an illness and caste-based discrimination but that did not keep him from getting an education. Throwing light on young Khobragade’s relationship with nature, the author writes, “The earth was his grandmother and the sky his grandfather. In their company, he began to learn. He felt secure and comforted. The land became his school for life.”

The thoughtful illustrations heighten the impact of the sparse text. The illustrator captures, for instance, a foundational moment from Khobragade’s childhood when he was perched on his father’s shoulders at a village gathering addressed by Babasaheb Ambedkar. He was transfixed.