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Famous Last Questions: A Confused Woman’s Investigations into the Country that Shaped Her
India’s ’90s kids grew up in an offline world and graduated to one that’s hyperconnected and seemingly always on fire. This generation’s psyche is riddled with qualms about identity, politics, capitalism, technology, relationships, selfhood, and what it means to live authentically—and in Famous Last Questions, Sanjana Ramachandran strikes at the heart of their confusion.
She is sincere and ironic, self-flagellating and observant, and witheringly funny. In a heroic attempt to understand why she is the way she is, she takes a scalpel to her childhood trauma and ends up with the socio-political machinery that set the scene for it, thinking out Why is ‘Science, Arts, or Commerce’ how we decide the course of our lives? Why must we believe in God? Should women get married before the age of thirty, or die trying? Why is domesticity so difficult when she isn’t the ‘perfect’ housewife? How has the internet exposed Indian culture? And can virtue actually kill people?
Motivated by the impulse to heal; to prove her genius; and to win love, fame, and ‘enlightenment’, Ramachandran unravels the entire idea of the self. In the process, she studies dysfunctional family dynamics and her relationship with her quintessentially #IndianParents, her upbringing as a Tamil Brahmin girl, confronting the ideas of caste, religion, morality, gender, and sexuality that define and often betray her generation.
Above all is her insight into the universal nature of suffering—the dynamics of who gets to suffer publicly and why, and also how no privilege—whether in terms of caste, class, gender, or sexuality—can ever really escape it. Unafraid to be disliked, she talks plainly about millennial narcissism and her own ‘supposed’ transition away from it, towards spirituality, authenticity, and self-acceptance. From describing life in Big Tech to days spent in Vipassana meditation, this is a book unafraid of contradictions, a heartfelt chronicle of the ‘modern’ Indian woman’s tumultuous journey from needing to achieve everything to searching for wholeness.
Famous Last Questions plays with the boundaries of memoir, reportage, and research, unburdened by the need for absolute answers. The author holds ambiguity closer to heart than any fixed ideal of ‘truth’, conflating the Buddhist notion of no-self with Hindu and Jungian ideas of a deeper, abiding self, and Godël’s Theorem with the inadequacy of organized world religions. Ramachandran is both the heroine and anti-heroine of this story—which, ultimately, is the story of us all.
She is sincere and ironic, self-flagellating and observant, and witheringly funny. In a heroic attempt to understand why she is the way she is, she takes a scalpel to her childhood trauma and ends up with the socio-political machinery that set the scene for it, thinking out Why is ‘Science, Arts, or Commerce’ how we decide the course of our lives? Why must we believe in God? Should women get married before the age of thirty, or die trying? Why is domesticity so difficult when she isn’t the ‘perfect’ housewife? How has the internet exposed Indian culture? And can virtue actually kill people?
Motivated by the impulse to heal; to prove her genius; and to win love, fame, and ‘enlightenment’, Ramachandran unravels the entire idea of the self. In the process, she studies dysfunctional family dynamics and her relationship with her quintessentially #IndianParents, her upbringing as a Tamil Brahmin girl, confronting the ideas of caste, religion, morality, gender, and sexuality that define and often betray her generation.
Above all is her insight into the universal nature of suffering—the dynamics of who gets to suffer publicly and why, and also how no privilege—whether in terms of caste, class, gender, or sexuality—can ever really escape it. Unafraid to be disliked, she talks plainly about millennial narcissism and her own ‘supposed’ transition away from it, towards spirituality, authenticity, and self-acceptance. From describing life in Big Tech to days spent in Vipassana meditation, this is a book unafraid of contradictions, a heartfelt chronicle of the ‘modern’ Indian woman’s tumultuous journey from needing to achieve everything to searching for wholeness.
Famous Last Questions plays with the boundaries of memoir, reportage, and research, unburdened by the need for absolute answers. The author holds ambiguity closer to heart than any fixed ideal of ‘truth’, conflating the Buddhist notion of no-self with Hindu and Jungian ideas of a deeper, abiding self, and Godël’s Theorem with the inadequacy of organized world religions. Ramachandran is both the heroine and anti-heroine of this story—which, ultimately, is the story of us all.
- GenresMemoir
319 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 10, 2025
8 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 24, 2025
Nearly a decade ago, I entered a writing competition. I didn’t win, not exactly. No trophy, no certificate, but the judges gave me a shoutout, a nod, a polite tap on the shoulder that said yes we see you, kid. And yet, I remember feeling this almost embarrassing envy towards the story that did win. I tried to disassociate myself from the feeling, to stuff it into some psychological closet. While I was repressing such a primal emotion, the act of it slipped past the gates of my ego and my consciousness wondered why was I doing it? That moment was the first breadcrumb that led me into Jungian literature. I discovered the shadow, the unconscious side of our psyche, which is the murky psychological basement where all our repressed feelings go to smoke and play poker and stage passive-aggressive interventions. Jung suggests that ignoring your shadow doesn’t make it go away, no, that stuff just makes it weirder and meaner. You have to observe your shadow. Acknowledge it. Attend to the abandoned child. Otherwise, it will start to crawl up the floorboards of your life in increasingly ugly ways.
My understanding of the shadow is still a work-in-progress (which, incidentally, is also how I like to describe myself in therapy). Shallow work, ahem pardon the Freudian slip, shadow work is difficult, often painfully so. But in Famous Last Questions, what Sanjana does is hold your hand through this uncharted terrain and point out all the co-existing paradoxes so specific to your inner wiring that you didn’t even know existed until she pointed them out. On the face of it, these are distilled socio-cultural essays to represent a generation of ’90s kids, their becoming, and their navigation of identity in a time when identity is both commodified and weaponized. But dig deeper, and you will know that these are words stemming from a self-awareness journey and a woman who has been painfully aware of it. This is self-awareness with citations.
Sanjana Ramachandran stood in front of her psyche (by extension, an Indian psyche) like a surgeon to dissect it in many parts, observe and analyze it microscopically and macroscopically, understanding its pulses and patterns through the lenses of science, psychology, culture, politics, religion, caste, philosophy, spirituality, art, and of course the anecdotal evidence of lived experience. My read tells me that she had left her biases at the doorstep while writing this, and even if some of them sneaked in, she held them up to light and owned them. This is unabashed, vulnerable writing and it takes courage to write something like this in today’s charged atmosphere. I’m grateful Sanjana wrote it and more so for writing it in her signature witty and humorous way. Reading this book is not like reading a self-indulgent pop culture book that takes you in like quicksand without your knowledge, no, this is a book that will demand you to bring out your shovel and dig into the grime and mud of the ground beneath you to find luminous hidden gems. And I bet you would do it, because right next to you is Sanjana, doing the same with an encouraging, fiery passion.
I believe that anyone who goes on this kind of journey, into the self and into the shadow, will go a little mad if they can’t express it. Sanjana did, hence the book. And what she wrote is indeed WILD.
My understanding of the shadow is still a work-in-progress (which, incidentally, is also how I like to describe myself in therapy). Shallow work, ahem pardon the Freudian slip, shadow work is difficult, often painfully so. But in Famous Last Questions, what Sanjana does is hold your hand through this uncharted terrain and point out all the co-existing paradoxes so specific to your inner wiring that you didn’t even know existed until she pointed them out. On the face of it, these are distilled socio-cultural essays to represent a generation of ’90s kids, their becoming, and their navigation of identity in a time when identity is both commodified and weaponized. But dig deeper, and you will know that these are words stemming from a self-awareness journey and a woman who has been painfully aware of it. This is self-awareness with citations.
Sanjana Ramachandran stood in front of her psyche (by extension, an Indian psyche) like a surgeon to dissect it in many parts, observe and analyze it microscopically and macroscopically, understanding its pulses and patterns through the lenses of science, psychology, culture, politics, religion, caste, philosophy, spirituality, art, and of course the anecdotal evidence of lived experience. My read tells me that she had left her biases at the doorstep while writing this, and even if some of them sneaked in, she held them up to light and owned them. This is unabashed, vulnerable writing and it takes courage to write something like this in today’s charged atmosphere. I’m grateful Sanjana wrote it and more so for writing it in her signature witty and humorous way. Reading this book is not like reading a self-indulgent pop culture book that takes you in like quicksand without your knowledge, no, this is a book that will demand you to bring out your shovel and dig into the grime and mud of the ground beneath you to find luminous hidden gems. And I bet you would do it, because right next to you is Sanjana, doing the same with an encouraging, fiery passion.
I believe that anyone who goes on this kind of journey, into the self and into the shadow, will go a little mad if they can’t express it. Sanjana did, hence the book. And what she wrote is indeed WILD.
June 1, 2025
3.5 stars.
This book completely took me by surprise. I picked it up not expecting much, and found myself unable to put it down. It’s witty, sharp, and most of all, so deeply relatable, especially if you’re a millennial who grew up in India in the '90s.
The book talks about all the things that define our generation: the confusion of growing up with a set of dreams that don’t quite make sense anymore, our late reckoning with caste and privilege, the increasing awareness of mental health, and this constant feeling that we’re a bit out of place—even in our own lives. One paragraph in particular really summed it all up for me:
This stayed with me because it just felt so true. So many of us have grown up believing in one version of success or identity, only to realize much later that we never really questioned where those ideas came from—or whether they made sense anymore.
The writing takes a little time to get used to. Some parts are a bit dense or overly intellectual when the same idea could have been said more simply. But once you settle into her style, it flows beautifully. I especially liked how each chapter follows a pattern: starting with a personal story, then bringing in similar experiences from other people, and finally connecting it all with references from literature or culture. That structure really works - it keeps the reader grounded while still leaving room for bigger ideas.
The only part that didn’t work for me was the last chapter about her relationship with God and her turn towards Buddhism. It felt a bit too sprawling. The point seemed to get lost in the detailing of spiritual frameworks and personal reflections. It wasn’t as sharp as the rest of the book and might have landed better as a separate project.
Still, that one chapter aside, this book really hit home. It’s rare to read something that makes you feel so seen. All the doubts, contradictions, and growing pains of our generation are captured so honestly here. And it’s oddly comforting to be reminded that we’re not alone in these struggles—that there are others feeling just as lost, just as questioning. Maybe that’s the power of stories like this—they don’t solve anything, but they make things a little easier to live with.
A really thoughtful, original read. I’m so glad I found it.
This book completely took me by surprise. I picked it up not expecting much, and found myself unable to put it down. It’s witty, sharp, and most of all, so deeply relatable, especially if you’re a millennial who grew up in India in the '90s.
The book talks about all the things that define our generation: the confusion of growing up with a set of dreams that don’t quite make sense anymore, our late reckoning with caste and privilege, the increasing awareness of mental health, and this constant feeling that we’re a bit out of place—even in our own lives. One paragraph in particular really summed it all up for me:
“...how people like me, upper-caste Hindus born in the 90s, India's late millennials, were the first to properly confront identity, particularly their caste identity, having been exposed to the anti-caste movement mostly in adulthood; still, how limited the lens of identity politics can be to understand ourselves and our condition; how the aspirations that had defined my life were national and generational and suddenly outdated by new, ever more urgent ones...”
This stayed with me because it just felt so true. So many of us have grown up believing in one version of success or identity, only to realize much later that we never really questioned where those ideas came from—or whether they made sense anymore.
The writing takes a little time to get used to. Some parts are a bit dense or overly intellectual when the same idea could have been said more simply. But once you settle into her style, it flows beautifully. I especially liked how each chapter follows a pattern: starting with a personal story, then bringing in similar experiences from other people, and finally connecting it all with references from literature or culture. That structure really works - it keeps the reader grounded while still leaving room for bigger ideas.
The only part that didn’t work for me was the last chapter about her relationship with God and her turn towards Buddhism. It felt a bit too sprawling. The point seemed to get lost in the detailing of spiritual frameworks and personal reflections. It wasn’t as sharp as the rest of the book and might have landed better as a separate project.
Still, that one chapter aside, this book really hit home. It’s rare to read something that makes you feel so seen. All the doubts, contradictions, and growing pains of our generation are captured so honestly here. And it’s oddly comforting to be reminded that we’re not alone in these struggles—that there are others feeling just as lost, just as questioning. Maybe that’s the power of stories like this—they don’t solve anything, but they make things a little easier to live with.
A really thoughtful, original read. I’m so glad I found it.
April 29, 2025
There is so much I want to write and say about this book. So many people I want to recommend it to. So much I want to discuss about it. I will begin with writing to Sanjana first.
Dear Sanjana Ramachandran, you have done a phenomenal job. You write beautifully. Crafty sentences. Deep emotions. Clichéd as it may sound, it so raw and honest. I think I may have been the perfect target audience for your book, although I would recommend it to anyone looking to understand the strange contradictions of the modern, mainly urban, Indian.
I have always known I wanted to write too. Only, it seemed like the only things I felt passionately enough to *really* want to write about were my inner contradictions. These emotions, so intrinsically linked with my family and upbringing, made it feel like it was impossible — it *is* impossible, still — to write out my heart on paper, not in the truest sense, not without it feeling like an exposé written during a manic episode.
You have articulated your madness — instigated from a complex family dynamic — so well, it almost felt like we were probably reading the same things and listening to the same stuff as we slowly started gaining a strange sense of political awareness about how our surroundings might have shaped our complex childhoods.
I want to go chapter by chapter though.
The first few chapters, picture of the modern Indian.
The desperate need to do well in maths in school. An even more desperate need to not appear too feminine to be flimsy. Study and work, competitiveness of modern India. Pipe dreams of creativity, stuffed in a box and forgotten. So much to relate to. I may not have been the rebel you were, but the madness was barely suppressed.
The drug-fuelled madness of Indian college life, something gaining traction in online essays about the book.
The anxiety and body image issues, the existential dread that follows as soon as ‘marriage’ comes up. Working bullshit jobs with our manufactured CVs, climbing a skewed corporate ladder. All the while, a nagging feeling of strange worthlessness because of our privilege. Acknowledgment of caste inequalities, and guilt. So much guilt.
How did you overcome the fear of exposing yourself as well as others? You’ve written about how it came to be, but nothing could be more taboo that writing about one’s family as you have. You have forgiven, and sought forgiveness; but really, the passion of the last chapter, where you look for equanimity, it just doesn’t read as well as the one titled “What is Love? Baby, Don’t Hurt Me”.
This is the chapter I will come back to, again and again and again. It is because of the intense exploration of being a privileged, urban brahmin woman — the suffocation of being one, the madness, the depression, that you have captured in words. Things I have thought but could not have gathered the courage to articulate as you have.
“For many years, I hated my father with the low-key persistence of a fan turned on and forgotten in some untidy back room of the house.”
Your reliance on books as an escape from the drudgery of being a family’s emotional regulator, all the while bottling up intense hatred. Your exploration of Brahminical patriarchy and hitting the nail with its control and suppression of Brahmin women’s sexuality, their life, their soul. Your sharp understanding of women’s traditional role of being a punching bag. These things are universal, I know, but the way you put it in the specific and strange Indian upper caste women’s context, it is bound to touch a nerve for someone like me. Ideal audience, what did I tell you.
I am amazed by your efforts at reconciliation with yourself, with meditation. I continue to think it is woo woo. Nothing gives me more peace and solace than simmering with low grade anger and finding writing that captures exactly everything I am angry about. Reading this book was as good as meditation for me. I was engrossed, and almost continuously felt like we were in a conversation.
You barely need my validation, some random person on the internet. But I think you are a cool woman. And brilliant. And a writer I loved reading, and would love to read more of. Many congratulations on this first book. Hope you continue to ask many more last questions.
Dear Sanjana Ramachandran, you have done a phenomenal job. You write beautifully. Crafty sentences. Deep emotions. Clichéd as it may sound, it so raw and honest. I think I may have been the perfect target audience for your book, although I would recommend it to anyone looking to understand the strange contradictions of the modern, mainly urban, Indian.
I have always known I wanted to write too. Only, it seemed like the only things I felt passionately enough to *really* want to write about were my inner contradictions. These emotions, so intrinsically linked with my family and upbringing, made it feel like it was impossible — it *is* impossible, still — to write out my heart on paper, not in the truest sense, not without it feeling like an exposé written during a manic episode.
You have articulated your madness — instigated from a complex family dynamic — so well, it almost felt like we were probably reading the same things and listening to the same stuff as we slowly started gaining a strange sense of political awareness about how our surroundings might have shaped our complex childhoods.
I want to go chapter by chapter though.
The first few chapters, picture of the modern Indian.
The desperate need to do well in maths in school. An even more desperate need to not appear too feminine to be flimsy. Study and work, competitiveness of modern India. Pipe dreams of creativity, stuffed in a box and forgotten. So much to relate to. I may not have been the rebel you were, but the madness was barely suppressed.
The drug-fuelled madness of Indian college life, something gaining traction in online essays about the book.
The anxiety and body image issues, the existential dread that follows as soon as ‘marriage’ comes up. Working bullshit jobs with our manufactured CVs, climbing a skewed corporate ladder. All the while, a nagging feeling of strange worthlessness because of our privilege. Acknowledgment of caste inequalities, and guilt. So much guilt.
How did you overcome the fear of exposing yourself as well as others? You’ve written about how it came to be, but nothing could be more taboo that writing about one’s family as you have. You have forgiven, and sought forgiveness; but really, the passion of the last chapter, where you look for equanimity, it just doesn’t read as well as the one titled “What is Love? Baby, Don’t Hurt Me”.
This is the chapter I will come back to, again and again and again. It is because of the intense exploration of being a privileged, urban brahmin woman — the suffocation of being one, the madness, the depression, that you have captured in words. Things I have thought but could not have gathered the courage to articulate as you have.
“For many years, I hated my father with the low-key persistence of a fan turned on and forgotten in some untidy back room of the house.”
Your reliance on books as an escape from the drudgery of being a family’s emotional regulator, all the while bottling up intense hatred. Your exploration of Brahminical patriarchy and hitting the nail with its control and suppression of Brahmin women’s sexuality, their life, their soul. Your sharp understanding of women’s traditional role of being a punching bag. These things are universal, I know, but the way you put it in the specific and strange Indian upper caste women’s context, it is bound to touch a nerve for someone like me. Ideal audience, what did I tell you.
I am amazed by your efforts at reconciliation with yourself, with meditation. I continue to think it is woo woo. Nothing gives me more peace and solace than simmering with low grade anger and finding writing that captures exactly everything I am angry about. Reading this book was as good as meditation for me. I was engrossed, and almost continuously felt like we were in a conversation.
You barely need my validation, some random person on the internet. But I think you are a cool woman. And brilliant. And a writer I loved reading, and would love to read more of. Many congratulations on this first book. Hope you continue to ask many more last questions.
September 25, 2025
Famous Last Questions is a brilliant introspection on the lives of the '90s kids where the author takes one for the team by sharing her life story while dissecting the impact of society, relationships and technology in our lives.
Sanjana has looked at multiple perspectives and questioned many fundamental assumptions that are ingrained in most people as the natural order of things.
To sum up, this is one of the best books I have read in my life!
Sanjana has looked at multiple perspectives and questioned many fundamental assumptions that are ingrained in most people as the natural order of things.
To sum up, this is one of the best books I have read in my life!
April 23, 2025
Books really do us a favor by making us feel seen and heard when we are consumed by despair. This is what I kept thinking while I spent the last couple of days devouring Sanjana Ramachandran's debut non-fiction: Famous Last Questions.
Everybody wants to feel special. Your behavior, preferences, virtues, and vices may seem personal and unique to you, and they are, but they are also influenced by your country, society, culture, and the times in which you were born and raised.
Ramachandran’s reflections are deeply personal, but parts of them would fit onto yours simply by virtue of sharing the same country, caste, class, age or gender. As she contextualizes and investigates her own existence and the myriad identities, she actually helps you see your own in the context you might have missed or overlooked.
I am a fiction reader. But I literally inhaled this book. At a lot of places I also had to pause and take a break because there are no words minced here, and you are almost compelled to look at a person or a situation in a way that you haven't before.
This book is not looking for answers or objectivity. It is only interested in asking questions and then challenging them further. It acknowledges the ambiguity that surrounds our world. If it's not already clear, Ramachandran's book probably fills a gaping hole in the Indian non-fiction market. And you should pick it up as soon as you can.
Everybody wants to feel special. Your behavior, preferences, virtues, and vices may seem personal and unique to you, and they are, but they are also influenced by your country, society, culture, and the times in which you were born and raised.
Ramachandran’s reflections are deeply personal, but parts of them would fit onto yours simply by virtue of sharing the same country, caste, class, age or gender. As she contextualizes and investigates her own existence and the myriad identities, she actually helps you see your own in the context you might have missed or overlooked.
I am a fiction reader. But I literally inhaled this book. At a lot of places I also had to pause and take a break because there are no words minced here, and you are almost compelled to look at a person or a situation in a way that you haven't before.
This book is not looking for answers or objectivity. It is only interested in asking questions and then challenging them further. It acknowledges the ambiguity that surrounds our world. If it's not already clear, Ramachandran's book probably fills a gaping hole in the Indian non-fiction market. And you should pick it up as soon as you can.
April 22, 2025
Devi Sedaris
August 28, 2025
A quiet, powerful reflection on identity and belonging Famous Last Questions is a thoughtfully written work that explores the tension between societal expectations and personal truth. Sanjana approaches difficult themes like family, identity and cultural pressure with clarity and restraint, allowing the emotion to build naturally.
The writing is clean, introspective and impactful with a tint of humour. It prompts reflection without demanding it — the kind of book that lingers in your mind and gently reshapes how you see certain parts of your own life or society.
Highly recommended for anyone drawn to honest, subtle writing that prioritizes truth over performance.
The writing is clean, introspective and impactful with a tint of humour. It prompts reflection without demanding it — the kind of book that lingers in your mind and gently reshapes how you see certain parts of your own life or society.
Highly recommended for anyone drawn to honest, subtle writing that prioritizes truth over performance.
September 3, 2025
Ramachandran's novel is set to be one of the defining ones of the Indian millennial (and formative-Gen Z) zeitgeist, chronicling the era as it does. Part seemingly memoir, part philosophical treatise in novel form and part a fable and an ode to the times it captures. Snapshotting life, parental influencing attempts and trying to find existence beyond it, self fulfillment (and in some sense the question: can one really attain it?), this book by the time you reach the end of it seems not only Ramachandran's- but also those of many of ours- in the Indian hearts that it manages to speak to.
January 17, 2026
For Indian millennials, this book offers deep, much-needed catharsis.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews