Two decades later, he sets out in search of this man. Sorcerer's Apprentice is the story of his apprenticeship to one of India's master conjurors and his initiation into the brotherhood of godmen. Learning to unmask illusion as well as practice it, he goes on a journey across the subcontinent, seeking out its miraculous and bizarre underbelly, traveling from Calcutta to Madras, from Bangalore to Bombay, meeting sadhus, sages, sorcerers, hypnotists, and humbugs. His quest is utterly unforgettable.-- An extraordinary account of how illusion works and an astonishing portrait of a great illusionist.

    Both are in ample evidence in this book.' - India TodayIn this incisive commentary, Arun Shourie documents the ways in which our history textbooks have been doctored by leftist historians. Thoroughly researched and riveting, this study brings to light the techniques and frauds that a cabal of some of our best-known academicians has used to promote themselves, and to acquire control over institutions. And then to put these supposedly academic institutions to use.Shourie shows how, in the process, this cabal has perverted India's historical narrative, and thereby vitiated the country's public discourse. Two new chapters bring to light recent developments in the field: how, with their holy scriptures having been repudiated in their holy cities, these 'historians' strive to retain their perches by dominating niche domains; how these efforts are bound to fail; but how their trajectory holds vital lessons for those who seek to replace them.

    The End of Imagination also includes her nonfiction works Power Politics, War Talk, Public Power in the Age of Empire, and An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, which include her widely circulated and inspiring writings on the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the need to confront corporate power, and the hollowing out of democratic institutions globally.

    Abdul Kalam, our most distinguished scientist, and close associate Y.S. Rajan examine India's strengths—and weaknesses—to offer a vision of how India can be among the world's first five economic powers in the year 2020. They cite growth rates and develoent trends to show that the goal is not an unrealistic one. Past successes, too, bear them out. For example, we were able to launch the green revolution at a time when experts had all but given up on India ever becoming self-sufficient in food. Similarly, in the field of space technology we started from scratch to have today a system of satellite-based communication linking remote regions of the country. The same sense of purpose can lead us to success in many other areas crucial to achieving the goal of a prosperous, strong nation, assert Kalam and Rajan.

    This volume narrates the political upheavals of the inter-war period, further enriched by Netaji's reflections on the key themes of Indian history and a finely etched assessment of Mahatma Gandhi's role in itNetaji : Collected Works, Vol 2

    Within the space of two months in 1947 more than twelve million people were displaced. A million died. More than seventy-five thousand women were abducted and raped. Countless children disappeared. Homes, villages, communities, families, and relationships were destroyed. Yet, more than half a century later, little is known of the human dimensions of this event. In The Other Side of Silence , Urvashi Butalia fills this gap by placing people—their individual experiences, their private pain—at the center of this epochal event.Through interviews conducted over a ten-year period and an examination of diaries, letters, memoirs, and parliamentary documents, Butalia asks how people on the margins of history—children, women, ordinary people, the lower castes, the untouchables—have been affected by this upheaval. To understand how and why certain events become shrouded in silence, she traces facets of her own poignant and partition-scarred family history before investigating the stories of other people and their experiences of the effects of this violent disruption. Those whom she interviews reveal that, at least in private, the voices of partition have not been stilled and the bitterness remains. Throughout, Butalia reflects on difficult questions: what did community, caste, and gender have to do with the violence that accompanied partition? What was partition meant to achieve and what did it actually achieve? How, through unspeakable horrors, did the survivors go on? Believing that only by remembering and telling their stories can those affected begin the process of healing and forgetting, Butalia presents a sensitive and moving account of her quest to hear the painful truth behind the silence.

    The splendour of imperial Delhi flares one last time. The young daughter of a craftsman in the city elopes with an officer of the East India Company. And so we are drawn into the story of Wazir Khanam: a dazzlingly beautiful and fiercely independent woman who takes a series of lovers, including a Navab and a Mughal prince--and whom history remembers as the mother of the famous poet Dagh. But it is not just one life that this novel sets out to capture: it paints in rapturous detail an entire civilization.Beginning with the story of an enigmatic and gifted painter in a village near Kishangarh, The Mirror of Beauty embarks on an epic journey that sweeps through the death-giving deserts of Rajputana, the verdant valley of Kashmir and the glorious cosmopolis of Delhi, the craft of miniature painting and the art of carpet designing, scintillating musical performances and recurring paintings of mysterious, alluring women. Its scope breathtaking, its language beguiling, and its style sumptuous, this is a work of profound beauty, depth and power.

    His first book, In Xanadu, became an instant backpacker's classic, winning a stream of literary prizes. City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain soon followed, to universal critical praise. Yet it is India that Dalrymple continues to return to in his travels, and his fourth book, The Age of Kali, is his most reflective book to date. The result of 10 year's living and traveling throughout the Indian subcontinent, The Age of Kali emerges from Dalrymple's uneasy sense that the region is slipping into the most fearsome of all epochs in ancient Hindu cosmology: "the Kali Yug, the Age of Kali, the lowest possible throw, an epoch of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration." "The brilliance of this book lies in its refusal to reflect any cultural pessimism. Dalrymple's love for the subcontinent, and his feel for its diverse cultural identity, comes across in every page, which makes its chronicles of political corruption, ethnic violence, and social disintegration all the more poignant. The scope of the book is particularly impressive, from the vivid opening chapters portraying the lawless caste violence of Bihar, to interviews with the drug barons on the North-West Frontier, and Dalrymple's extraordinary encounter with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Some of the most fascinating sections of the book are Dalrymple's interviews with Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, which read like nonfiction companion pieces to Salman Rushdie's bitterly satirical Shame. The Age of Kali is a dark, disturbing book that takes the pulse of a continent facing some tough questions. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

    Rescued from a life of begging, Tara, scrawny and mistreated, was transformed through Shand's tender attention and care on their journey into a star attraction. Blessed by priests, entertained by princes, they shuffled happily through towns and villages, Tara sucking up rice and bananas from roadside stands and Shand scattering rupees in compensation. Everywhere they went, the adventurer, his unusual steed, and his five eccentric Indian companions drew an inquisitive crowd of admirers. Rivaling Kipling, this story of man and elephant is by turns exciting, terrifying and moving. Merely arriving at Sonepur on the Ganges was not the end of the story, and finding a good home for Tara was to present the greatest challenge of all for a man who had just traveled 800 miles through heat, hardship and danger. With an ear for the comic, an eye for the exotic and a taste for the bizarre, Shand informs as he entertains, painting a vivid picture of Indian life, customs and locale as he takes us through his daily adventures with Tara in this transporting memoir.

    This autobiography evokes the socio-cultural environment in which Subhas Chandra Bose grew up and the lineaments of his intellectual development.

    Novel set against the contemporary political situation in India.

    Arranged in eleven thematic sections, the images capture the sights and smells of streetlife, monuments and pilgrims, creating a comprehensive picture of daily life in India.

    While Partition sounds smooth on paper, the reality was horrific. More than eight million people migrated and one million died in the process. The forced migration, violence between Hindus and Muslims, and mass widowhood were unprecedented and well-documented. What was less obvious but equally real was that millions of people had to realign their identities, uncertain about who they thought they were. The rending of the social and emotional fabric that took place in 1947 is still far from mended.While there are plenty of official accounts of Partition, there are few social histories and no feminist histories. Borders and Boundaries changes that, providing first-hand accounts and memoirs, juxtaposed alongside official government accounts. The authors make women not only visible but central. They explore what country, nation, and religious identity meant for women, and they address the question of the nation-state and the gendering of citizenship. In the largest ever peace-time mass migration of people, violence against women became the norm. Thousands of women committed suicide or were done to death by their own kinsmen. Nearly 100,000 women were "abducted" during the migration. A young woman might have been separated from her family when a convoy was ambushed, abducted by people of another religion, forced to convert, and forced into marriage or cohabitation. After bearing a child, she would be offered the opportunity to return only if she left her child behind and if she could face shame in her natal community. These stories do not paint their subjects as victims. Theirs are the stories of battles over gender, the body, sexuality, and nationalism-stories of women fighting for identity.

    

    It constituted the results of the author's devoted study and research extending over fourteen years. This English version of the same is to meet the growing demand of scholars interested in the study of Puranas. The material compiled is arranged systematically. Citations have been inserted in support of stated facts; at places they have been substituted by references. Obsolete and obscure words, denoting objects such as a particular tree or plant have been explained by their scientific or vernacular equivalents. All modern critical apparatus has been utilized in the preparation of this comprehensive work.

    The dominant flavor of this gastronomic Companion is historical, and drawing on a variety of sources - literature, archaeology, epigraphic records, anthropology, philology, and botanical and genetic studies - it offers a gamut of interesting facts pertaining to the origins and evolution of Indian food. There are separate chapters on prehistoric cooking methods, regional cuisines, the theories and classification of foods, as codified by ancient Indian doctors, customs and rituals, the etymology of food-words, and the shift towards vegetarianism with the advent of Buddhism and Jainism. This companion outlines the enormous variety of cuisines, food materials and dishes that collectively fall under the term Indian food.

    It is essential reading for social and political scientists, and all those interested in the complexities of Indian politics and culture.

    It is an important but not well-known text from the rich Sakta (Goddess) tradition of India. The Devi Gita was composed around the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier. This work makes available an up-to-date translation of the Devi Gita, along with a historical and theological analysis of the text. The book is divided into sections of verses, and each section is followed by a comment explaining key terms, concepts, ritual procedures, and mythic themes. The comments also offer comparisons with related schools of thought, indicate parallel texts and textual sources of verses in the Devi Gita, and briefly elucidate the historical and religious background, supplementing the remarks of the introduction.

    The National Movement is also examined critically. Students of sociology, social anthropology, political science, and Indian history will take an interest in this volume.

    Part Two explores other Buddhist utopias and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing. Steven Collins discusses these issues in relation to textuality, world history, and ideology in premodern civilizations, aiming to contribute to a new vision of Buddhist history that integrates the inside and the outside of texts.

    Several leading thinkers like Peter Drucker and Paul Samuelson have – though guardedly – predicted that capitalism in its present form may not survive beyond the first quarter of the next century. However, the collapse of these systems cannot automatically usher in a superior world-order. Evolving a ‘Third Way’ desiderates a vast amount of preparatory work at both the intellectual and organisational levels. To pave the way for such exploration is the purpose of the essays and lectures compiles in this volume.

    The entry for each ingredient is self-contained for ease of reference, and serves to illuminate the culinary, medicinal and even mythological properties.

    Restaurant-goers and critics alike have long loved Chef Neela Paniz's vibrant, mouth-watering creations. Now, with this collection of over 160 remarkable recipes, home cooks can join the celebration.She focuses on the light, the healthy, the fresh, and the easy-to-prepare to create her elegant recipes, including traditional favorites like chutneys, dals, and curries—but with a lighter, more flavorful touch. Vegetable and vegetarian dishes, desserts, innovative breads, and 100 or so more recipes will inspire any cook to create the signature dishes that keep the customers of this Southern California cafe coming back for more.

    

    First, there is the child Mallika, brimming with romantic fantasies and bemoaning the lack of passion in the lives of her mother, Padma, and her mother's contemporaries - women whom she nevertheless loves fiercely. Mallika renders her fantasies through a highly wrought imagination, re-creating for the reader the events that came to devastate her childhood. Then, we revisit the events Mallika has described as they are retold from the points of view of Padma and Padma's sister, mother and friends. The story that slowly emerges is not the same as the one Mallika told. For the world of these women is one where secrets grow like fungus, where guilt roots and ripens, where anger burns and smolders. Every one of them carries the burden of secrets that may or may not be known by the others - some secrets obvious, others subtler and more insidious - and that have for them become a way of life. And so they tell their stories, stories by no means as prosaic as the child Mallika believes. Layer after layer of concealing silence is relentlessly peeled off, till, at last, the truth behind the greatest secret of all is laid bare - the story of Padma's love.

    Portrays the spirit of the Tibetan people as they try to maintain their culture under Chinese rule.

    

    These dazzling paintings on cloth and other objects dating from the eleventh to the fifteenth century...are brought together here for the first time, and many of them are previously unpublished. The authors analyze style, iconography, provenance and date; the profound cultural ties between Tibet and eastern India as well as between Tibet and Nepal; and the painting techniques of the period.

    This collection includes the stories Sohni-Mahiwal, Heer-Ranjha, Sassi-Punnu, and Mirza-Sahibaan.

    This bestselling and indispensable guide is revered for its practical information on the complexities of travel in India, exquisitely detailed maps, good-value listings for all budgets, and essential advice on Indian culture, solo travel, language, and bargaining. color. 200 maps.

    According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, freedom of expression is the right of every individual to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. In practice, however, this fundamental human right is frequently restricted through tactics that include censorship, restrictive press legislation, and harassment of journalists, bloggers and others who voice their opinions, as well as crackdowns on religious minorities and other suppression of religious freedom. In response to the growing problem, Freedom House is engaging in a multi-faceted Freedom of Expression Campaign to defend this critical right.

    Ranging in date from the second century BC to the sixth century AD, the paintings and sculptures that they found there now rank among the world's most important cultural treasures. Since the rediscovery of the caves, numerous attempts have been made to photograph the murals and sculptures accurately, but these works of art were created using the glow of lamps and candles, not the harsh light of modern professional photography. Now, in The Ajanta Caves, using long exposures that pick up natural ambient light, Benoy K. Behl captures some of the finest works of Buddhist art in all their natural luminosity. The artists who created the Ajanta caves were early followers of the Buddha, and they sought an isolated haven where they could meditate in peace. What is unique about the paintings is not their variety, nor the skill displayed in their composition, but their humanity; the men and women of this world look upon each other with expressions of infinite caring.

    Vijayan is one of the most brilliant and original of the contemporary Indian authors. His fiction, written in Malayalam, is complex and poetic, a sumptuous blend of myth, dark humour, eroticism, mystical insights and a uniquely Indian brand of magic realism. This collection brings together for the first time all four of Vijayan’s books translated into English so far. In his much-acclaimed first novel ‘The Legends of Khasak’, Ravi, a schoolteacher, arrives in the remote village of Khasak and is gradually engulfed by the dreams and fables of that ancient land. In the controversial political allegory ‘The Saga of Dharmapuri’, the tyrannical President of Dharmapuri and Siddhaartha, a travelling mystic and messiah, engage in an unending symbolic battle. In the award-winning ‘The Infinity of Grace’, Kunjunni, a journalist, goes to Calcutta to cover the Bangladesh war, and attempts to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter who live there. Through the personal trauma that follows, he arrives at a transcendental understanding of life and the harmony implicit in apparently chaotic events. The final section of this volume comprises twenty-one short stories—which include classics such as ‘After the Hanging’, ‘Oil’, ‘Wind Flowers’, ‘Anachronisms’ and ‘The Foetus’. Together, they bear testimony to Vijayan’s skills as an unusually innovative and evocative writer of romances, parables and tales of the supernatural.

    This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives.Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.

    They surged forward with renewed vigour. Nationalist resistance to what had been viewed as an imperialist incubus during the Struggle for Freedom from British rule, broke down when the very leaders who had frowned upon it started speaking in its favour. Voices which still remained 'recalcitrant' were sought to be silencsed by being branded as those of 'Hindu communalism'. Nehruvian Secularism had stolen a march under the smokescreen of Mahatma Gandhi's sarva-dharma-samabhava. The Christian missionary orchestra in India after independence has continued to rise from one crescendo to another with applause from the Nehruvian establishment manned by a brood of self-alienated Hindus spawned by missionary-macaulayite education. The only rift in the lute has been K.M. Panikkar's Asia and Western Dominance published in 1953, the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Committee Madhya Pradesh published in 1956, Om Prakash Tyagi's Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1978, Arun Shourie's Missionaries in India published in 1994, and the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill introduced in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by Mangal Prabhat Lodha on 20 December 1996. Panikkar's study was primarily aimed at providing a survey of Western imperialism in Asia from CE 1498 to 1945. Christian missions came into the picture simply because he found them arrayed always and everywhere alongside Western gunboats, diplomatic pressures, extraterritorial rights and plain gangsterism. Contemporary records consulted by him could not but cut to size the inflated images of Christian heroes such as Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci. They were found to be not much more than minions employed by European kings scheming to carve out empires in the East. Their methods of trying to convert kings and commoners in Asia

    

    All except for one brave little parrot, who has an idea. Help me, she cries to the elephants, beseeching them to fill their trunks with water to spray on the flames. Help me, she begs the cheetahs, even as they urge her to flee and save herself. But the brave little parrot will not be daunted. Can the determination and courage of one small bird be enough to save a forest? Susan Gaber

    This volume gives a detailed account of the individuals, organizations, and institutions that were influential in India in the promotion of education for Muslim girls in the colonial period.

    Social and economic activities in Mahatma Gandhi's last home located at Sevaagraama aAasrama, Wardha."

    Addressing a wide range of epistemological dilemmas, as well as perceived commonalities and differences between Eastern and Western philosophy, it is a major contribution to comparative philosophy and forms a vantage point for cross-cultural comparison.

    Based on the ninety volumes of Gandhi's Collected Works this is the first systematic study of Mohandas Gandhi's conception of religion and of his personal practices

    Kanda’s earlier book, Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal which contained English translations of 108 ghazals selected from nine major poets: Wali, Dard, Mir, Ghalib, Momin, Hasrat, Iqbal, Firaq and Faiz. The present volume contains 129 ghazals, representing 20 outstanding urdu poets: Mohd. Quli Qutab Shah, Siraj, Sauda, Zafar, Insha, Aatish, Zauq, Ameer Meenai, Dagh, Hali, Akbar, Shad Azimabadi, Fani, Chakbast,Asghar, jigar, Josh, Sahir Ludhianvi, Nasir Kaazmi and Bani. Thus this anthology, taken together with The Masterpiece, may rightly claim to be a fully representative collection of Urdu ghazals in English translation.The ghazals included in this volume are carefully selected, keeping in view their intrinsic, artistic quality, the universality of their content and their accessibility for the average reader. Each ghazal is first presented in Urdu calligraphics; this is followed, on the opposite page, by its English translation which, in turn, is followed by the Romanized versions of the Urdu text. Further, the selection of each poet is preceded by a brief biographical-cum-critical note, and an authentic portrait of the poet. Another important feature of the book is the introductory essay on Urdu ghazal, which discuss in detail the origin, development and peculiar characteristics of this art form.

    It traces the origins of logical theory in India, with chapters on the general characteristics of Indian logic, the analysis of debate, Dinnaga and the triple-conditioned sign, Dharmakirti and the problem of induction, the Jaina contribution to logic, and later developments in Navya-Nyaya. "This book is a kind of scholarly and personal testament to an important and influential author, who was one of the exemplary mediators between Indian and Western thought in the twentieth century. Matilal was equally committed to the rational and methodological traditions of Indian thought and to the analytical standards of modern Western thought, and his combination of expertise in both areas was unique. The Character of Logic in India shows great pedagogical skills and makes concepts and problems which are not very familiar to most Western readers as transparent and clear as possible." — Wilhelm Halbfass, University of Pennsylvania"It is a lucid presentation on a most difficult topic. Only a great scholar and teacher like Matilal could have produced such a book. It covers a large field with ease and grace." — J. N. Mohanty, Emory University

    In this textual, historical, and interpretive study, Whicher offers a plausible and innovative reading of the intention of the Yoga-Sutras, namely that Yoga does not advocate the abandonment or condemnation of the world, but rather supports a stance that enables one to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification. Challenging and correcting misperceptions about Yoga drawn by traditional and modern interpretations of the Yoga-Sutras, the author argues for a fresh vision of the spiritual potential present in this seminal text, thereby contributing to our understanding of the meaning and practical relevance of Yoga and its reception today.