A searching, reflective, and critical review of Scamlands by Snigdha Poonam, this article examines how fraud economies rise from inequality, technology, and eroding trust. Moving from Jharkhand to Cambodia, it explores scam culture, historical roots in Thuggee, personal encounters with digital deception, and the wider moral crisis shaping modern India and Asia. Have you ever wondered how your bank details reached a stranger before your friends did? You live a careful life. You guard your passwords. You avoid suspicious links. Yet one afternoon, your phone rings. A polite voice knows your full name, your city, even your recent bank transaction. You pause. You wonder. How? That question sits at the heart of Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World by Snigdha Poonam. Published in October 2025 by India Viking in a handsome hardcover edition of 344 pages priced at ₹799, this nonfiction crime narrative reads like a thriller but feels like sociology class, eco...
A Spill the Tea story about a woman who realises she learned how to love calmly and clearly only after the person who stayed through her chaos was gone. Now grounded and emotionally capable, she confronts the quiet cost of becoming better too late, and the loneliness of having no one left to give that version of herself to. --- Riva refused tea without ceremony. I heard the gate before I heard her voice. The familiar scrape of metal against stone, followed by footsteps that didn’t hurry but didn’t hesitate either. When I stepped out into the courtyard, she left her bag where it fell, like she wasn’t planning to stay long. Near one of the charpoys like she’d done it a hundred times before. A few strands of her hair clung to her neck, unrushed, intimate, the way people look when they leave before a moment has fully settled. She wore a loose olive-green shirt, the kind that softened with age, sleeves rolled to her elbows without thought. Faded jeans. Flat sandals she’d probably owned f...