Accounts of his eventful and stormy life have oscillated from eulogizing hagiographies to disparaging demonization. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between and has unfortunately never been brought to light. Savarkar and his ideology stood as one of the strongest and most virulent opponents of Gandhi, his pacifist philosophy and the Indian National Congress.An alleged atheist and a staunch rationalist who opposed orthodox Hindu beliefs, encouraged inter-caste marriage and dining, and dismissed cow worship as mere superstition, Savarkar was, arguably, the most vocal political voice for the Hindu community through the entire course of India's freedom struggle. From the heady days of revolution and generating international support for the cause of India's freedom as a law student in London, Savarkar found himself arrested, unfairly tried for sedition, transported and incarcerated at the Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, for over a decade, where he underwent unimaginable torture.From being an optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him in the Cellular Jail to a proponent of 'Hindutva', which viewed Muslims with suspicion?Drawing from a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad, this biography in two parts-the first focusing on the years leading up to his incarceration and eventual release from the Kalapani-puts Savarkar, his life and philosophy in a new perspective and looks at the man with all his achievements and failings.

    The initial days were tough but now it gives me pleasure. I have inherited the art of making love from my grandmother.” -Roopal, a sex worker from the Bedia community in brothel number 56. Nath Utrai ceremony is nothing but the auction of the girl by the highest bidder near Bharatpur in Rajasthan. “Everyone believes that all hijras are castrated, but this is not true. We call it nirvana. Castration is usually optional. It cannot be forced upon a hijra.” -Sharmila, a eunuch from the streets of Varanasi The narrator spends a considerable amount of time in G.B. Road, the famous red-light district in New Delhi during his stint with an NGO. He records the narratives of the sex workers of brothel number 56, insights of their daily lives, local lingos, quarrels, and the ins and outs of their business with an honest stoicism that does not dilute the terrible pathos of their lives. Through this voyage within the walls of pleasurable cells, the writer learns that the G.B. road is an inexorable web...but only because the women trapped in it believe it to be so.

    Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London.

    In this brilliant retelling, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni places Sita at the centre of the novel: this is Sita’s version. The Forest of Enchantments is also a very human story of some of the other women in the epic, often misunderstood and relegated to the margins: Kaikeyi, Surpanakha, Mandodari. A powerful comment on duty, betrayal, infidelity and honour, it is also about women’s struggle to retain autonomy in a world that privileges men, as Chitra transforms an ancient story into a gripping, contemporary battle of wills. While the Ramayana resonates even today, she makes it more relevant than ever, in the underlying questions in the novel: How should women be treated by their loved ones? What are their rights in a relationship? When does a woman need to stand up and say, ‘Enough!’

    Lt. Ummer Fayaz was brutally murdered by armed militants in Kashmir while he was back home, attending a wedding in the family. The death sent a nation into shock, and immortalised the memory of a young man with conviction beyond his years.In his brief, inspiring life, Ummer joined the army to set an example and galvanise fellow Kashmiris to move beyond the cycle of violence that unrest in the state had forced them into.Deeply researched and told with feeling, Undaunted is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary life.Ummer epitomises ‘Kashmiryat’ in its truest sense and will go down in the history as a hero who chose to serve the nation, against all odds.-General Bipin Rawat. Chief of the Army StaffBhaavna Arora's deep field research on the life and times of young Lt. Ummer Fayaz, not without its own inherent dangers, reveals just what are the aspirations of most young Kashmiris.-Lt. Gen. Ata Hasnain. Former Military Secretary of the Indian ArmyA soul-stirring book.-Lt. Gen. Satish Dua. GOC 15 Corps during the Surgical Strikes and execution of Burhan WaniBhaavna has truthfully conveyed all she witnessed, and in this lies the real value of the book.-Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda. Northern Army Commander during the Surgical StrikesUmmer is an icon for our warriors and children.Maj. Gen. G.D. Bakshi. Army HistorianIt’s a must-read for all Indians who care about Kashmir, its future and for those Kashmiris who refuse to be cowed down by terror threats when it comes to serving their country.-Neeraj Kumar. Former Commissioner of Police, Delhi. Man behind the Nirbhaya arrests and convictionThis book has the potential to make many Lt. Ummmer Fayazs.-Major D.P. Singh. India’s first blade runner and Kargil war heroThis book is a plea for hope. Without stating the obvious, it is a cry for Kashmir, a prayer for young Kashmiris to take a deep look at who their heroes should be.-Major Gaurav Arya. Defence AnalystI am particularly struck by the lengths to which Bhaavna has gone to render an authentic account of Kashmir, its life and the life of armymen posted there.-Major Surendra Poonia. President Awardee, Special Forces Veteran

    Established in October 2007, Flipkart began as an online bookstore and soon came to be known for its ‘customer obsession’. As the startup’s reputation grew, so did its value, with venture capitalists in India and abroad lining up to invest heavily in the company that stood for bold ambition, unabashed consumerism and the virtues of technology.Investigative journalist Mihir Dalal recounts the astounding story of how the Bansals built Flipkart into a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse in the span of a few years and made internet entrepreneurship a desirable occupation. But it is also a story of big money, power and hubris, as both business and interpersonal complexities weakened the founders’ control over their creation and forced them to sell out to a retailer whose dominance they had once dreamt of emulating. Flipkart’s auction involved some of the corporate world’s biggest names, from Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai to Masayoshi Son and Doug McMillon, an ironic testimony to the strength of what the Bansals had forged.Based on extraordinary research, extensive interviews and deep access to key characters in the Flipkart story, Big Billion Startup is the riveting and revealing account of how Sachin and Binny Bansal built and sold India’s largest internet company.

    Looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).Lovers and haters, friends and family, married men and determined singles, churchgoers and abstainers, Bombay Balchão is a tangled tale of ordinary lives – of a woman who loses her husband to a dockyard explosion and turns to bootlegging, a teen romance that drowns like a paper boat, a social misfit rescued by his addiction to crosswords, a wife who tries to exorcise the spirit of her dead mother-in-law from her husband, a rebellious young woman who spurns true love for the abandonment of dance. Ordinary, except when seen through their own eyes. Then, it’s legend.Set in Cavel, a tiny Catholic neighbourhood on Bombay’s D’Lima Street, this delightful debut novel is painted with many shades of history and memory, laughter and melancholy, sunshine and silver rain.

    They slayed demons and protected their devotees fiercely. From Parvati to Ashokasundari and from Bhamati to Mandodari, this collection features enchanting and fearless women who frequently led wars on behalf of the gods, were the backbone of their families and makers of their own destinies.India's much-loved and bestselling author Sudha Murty takes you on an empowering journey-through the yarns forgotten in time-abounding with remarkable women who will remind you of the strong female influences in your life.

    For Yashica Dutt, a journalist living in New York, this was the moment to stop living a lie, and admit to something that she had hidden from friends and colleagues for over a decade—that she was Dalit.In Coming Out as Dalit, Dutt recounts the exhausting burden of living with the secret and how she was terrified of being found out. She talks about the tremendous feeling of empowerment she experienced when she finally stood up for herself and her community and shrugged off the fake upper-caste identity she’d had to construct for herself. As she began to understand the inequities of the caste system, she also had to deal with the crushing guilt of denying her history and the struggles of her grandparents and the many Dalit reformers who fought for equal rights.In this personal memoir that is also a narrative of the Dalits, she writes about the journey of coming to terms with her identity and takes us through the history of the Dalit movement; the consequences of her community’s lack of access to education and culture; the need for reservation; the paucity of Dalit voices in mainstream media; Dalit women’s movements and their ongoing contributions; and attempts to answer crucial questions about caste and privilege. Woven from personal narratives from her own life as well as that of other Dalits, this book forces us to confront the injustices of caste and also serves as a call to action.Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar Award 2020.

    Taken together, the essays speak in a voice of unique spirit, marked by compassion, clarity, and courage. Radical and superbly readable, they speak always in defense of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military, and governmental elites.

    Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second Indian revolt. What happened next shocked the world. An unauthorized gathering in the Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael’s law enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled garden, blocking the only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the thickest parts of the crowd, filled with over a thousand unarmed men, women, and children. For ten minutes, the soldiers continued firing, stopping only when they ran out of ammunition. According to legend, eighteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in the attack, and remained surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible. The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex—but no less dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traced Singh’s journey through Africa, the United States, and across Europe until, in March 1940, he finally arrived in front of O’Dwyer himself in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient Assassin shines a devastating light on one of history’s most horrific events, but it reads like a taut thriller and reveals the incredible but true story behind a legend that still endures today.

    A sweeping epic romance set in the British Raj for fans of Richard and Judy Book Club Pick Dinah Jefferies and global bestseller Lucinda Riley Sarah Archer’s future as the dutiful wife of a British official in India seems assured, until a chance meeting with the gorgeous and powerful French-Indian, Ravi Sabran, changes the course of her destiny.      As the veneer of polite society wears off in the heat of the Indian sun, Sarah soon realises that nothing is as it appears to be, especially her husband Charles… In the beautiful jasmine gardens of the palace of the Maharajah, Sarah follows a forbidden path… towards Ravi and the long-buried secrets of her own birth.

    Perhaps, these are the usual side effects of prolonged riding with the king of the road, I think to myself. But it is only when I fill in ‘truck’ as my mode of transportation in the hotel ledger at Udaipur does the utter ludicrousness of my endeavour truly hit home"Think truck drivers, and movie scenes of them drunkenly crushing inconvenient people to their gravelly deaths come to mind. But what are their lives on the road actually like?In Truck De India!, journalist Rajat Ubhaykar embarks on a 10,000 km-long, 100% unplanned trip, hitchhiking with truckers all across India. On the way, he makes unexpected friendships; listens to highway ghost stories; discovers the near-fatal consequences of overloading trucks; documents the fascinating tradition of truck art in Punjab; travels alongside nomadic shepherds in Kashmir; encounters endemic corruption repeatedly; survives NH39, the insurgent-ridden highway through Nagaland and Manipur; and is unfailingly greeted by the unconditional kindness of perfect strangers.Imbued with humour, empathy, and a keen sense of history, Truck De India! is a travelogue like no other you've read. It is the story of India, and Indians, on the road.

    The ‘invisible threads’ Nehru said held together an improbable union divided by language, religion and ethnicity have snapped under the burden of Modi’s Hindu-supremacist rule.In this blistering critique of post-Independence India from Nehru to Modi, K.S. Komireddi charts the unsound course of Indian nationalism: its cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India’s past and demeaning bribes to India’s minorities. He argues that the missteps of the nation’s founders, the mistakes of Nehru, the betrayals of his daughter and her sons, the anti-democratic fetish for technocracy inaugurated by Narasimha Rao and carried to the extremes by Manmohan Singh—all of them laid down the road on which Hindu nationalists rode to absolute power.Hindu bigotry, ennobled under Modi as a healthy form of self-assertion, has reopened old fissures that threaten to devour India’s hard-won unity. Yet bad times have also smashed the citizenly complacency that brought India to this point. There are multitudes who now realise how extraordinary and brave the idea of India was to begin with; there is a resurgent struggle against its extinction, and the assertion of new voices to wrest the republic from the forces of religious majoritarianism.A short history of the modern Indian nation, Malevolent Republic is also an impassioned plea for India’s reclamation. ‘Kapil Komireddi is one of the most thoughtful and thorough journalists writing today. His range of interests is impressive in its breadth and cosmopolitanism; his is a rare voice that can comment on global affairs from a truly comparative perspective.’ AMITAV Ghosh ‘Kapil Komireddi is a write of flair, originality and, above all, an absolute independence of mind … His ability to see through posturing and prejudice makes his work both distinctive and compelling. This book deserves to be widely read within India and beyond.’RAMACHANDRA GUHA

    Tricks will help you to understand, learn and remember Indian Polity and Constitution. Mnemonics used in this book are very unique. This book will help to cover other subjects such as Social Science, Political Science, Public Administration, Constitutional Law, Legal Reference and Current Affairs in a better way. This Textbook and eTextbook will be useful for UPSC, PPSC, HPSC, State Competitive Examinations, SSC, Banking, Clerical and all other Government Examinations. In short, this book is a sure-shot formula for success with its tips and tricks. Contents: Title Page Objectives What is the need for a political system in a country? Schedules of Indian Constitution  The Preamble The Union and its Territory: Part I (Articles 1- 4) Citizenship: Part II(Articles 5- 11) Fundamental Rights: Part III (Article 12-35) Directive Principles of State Policy: Part IV (Article 36-51) Fundamental Duties: Part IV-A(Article 51A) Union : Part V (Article 52-151) Other important Articles of the Indian Constitution Extended learning

    Yet the working of the Constitution over the last seven decades has often failed to fulfill that transformative promise. Not only have successive Parliaments failed to repeal colonial-era laws that are inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution, but constitutional challenges to these laws have also failed before the courts. Indeed, in numerous cases, the Supreme Court has used colonial-era laws to cut down or weaken the fundamental rights. The Transformative Constitution by Gautam Bhatia draws on pre-Independence legal and political history to argue that the Constitution was intended to transform not merely the political status of Indians from subjects to citizens, but also the social relationships on which legal and political structures rested. He advances a novel vision of the Constitution, and of constitutional interpretation, which is faithful to its text, structure and history, and above all to its overarching commitment to political and social transformation.

    

    Written in a lively, riveting style, this book has a cast of characters that includes the who’s who of the Indian legal system. It also paints an unexpected picture of the Indian judiciary: the Courts are not always on the right side of history or justice, and they don’t always have the last word on the matters before them. This entertaining book is an incisive look into the functioning of Indian institutions.

    His father had requested the courts to look into evidences that would prove his son’s innocence, but the letter only goes on to show why Bhagat Singh is a true revolutionary who paved a new path for Indian Independence.

    To be 'safe', women are told they must allow themselves to be kept under constant surveillance. Their movement is restricted to specific spaces, often homes and hostels. Extreme levels of control are exercised to confine their mobility.But is freedom really incompatible with safety? In this ground-breaking and radical book, Kavita Krishnan locates the personal and political repercussions of erasing women from public spaces. She argues that many real and violent threats to female autonomy are, in fact, hidden in plain sight. Often challenging conventional wisdom, this is a blazing, fiery manifesto for greater equality, political and economic independence, and, most of all, personal freedom.

    A story of friendship, love, betrayal, and obsession. Rudra, a stranger Arya didn't remember meeting; but he knew more about her than she did about herself. Who was this stranger? Why did he seem so familiar? Why was she attracted to him? From the day he visited Arya’s house, Rudra had wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything. But, he refrained himself and decided to wait for her to remember... and recognize him. Will she remember him... or will he have to lose her once again. 'Bestowed' - A saga of love!https://notionpress.com/read/bestowed

    Deep Halder is one of them.' - Amitava Kumar In 1978, around 1.5 lakh Hindu refugees, mostly belonging to the lower castes, settled in Marichjhapi an island in the Sundarbans, in West Bengal. By May 1979, the island was cleared of all refugees by Jyoti Basu's Left Front government. Most of the refugees were sent back to the central India camps they came from, but there were many deaths: of diseases, malnutrition resulting from an economic blockade, as well as from violence unleashed by the police on the orders of the government. Some of the refugees who survived Marichjhapi say the number of those who lost their lives could be as high as 10,000, while the-then government officials maintain that there were less than ten victims. How does an entire island population disappear? How does one unearth the truth and the details of one of the worst atrocities of post-Independent India? Journalist Deep Halder reconstructs the buried history of the 1979 massacres through his interviews with survivors, erstwhile reporters, government officials and activists with a rare combination of courage, conscientiousness and empathy.

    And yet this ancient land and its varied societies experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and especially Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.   Richard M. Eaton tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality, as he traces the rise of Persianate culture, a many-faceted transregional world connected by ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become progressively indigenized in the time of the great Mughals (sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries). Eaton brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture—an equally rich and transregional complex that continued to flourish and grow throughout this period—and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and a host of regional states. This long-term process of cultural interaction is profoundly reflected in the languages, literatures, cuisines, attires, religions, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, and architecture—and more—of South Asia.

    In this tight-knit community, five girls on the cusp of womanhood-a politically driven graffiti artist; a transgender Christian convert; a blind girl who loves to dance; and the queer daughter of a hijabi union leader-forge an unbreakable bond.When the local government threatens to demolish their tin shacks in order to build a shopping mall, the girls and their mothers refuse to be erased. Together they wage war on the bulldozers sent to bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that wishes that families like them would remain hidden forever.Elegant, poetic, and vibrant, A People's History of Heaven takes a clear-eyed look at adversity and geography and dazzles in its depiction of love and female friendship.

    Yet their memory of India's partition has been shrouded in silence. Kavita Puri's father was twelve when he found himself one of the millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims caught up in the devastating aftermath of a hastily drawn border. For seventy years he remained silent – like so many – about the horrors he had seen. When her father finally spoke out, opening up a forgotten part of Puri's family history, she was compelled to seek out the stories of South Asians who were once subjects of the British Raj, and are now British citizens. Determined to preserve these accounts – of the end of Empire and the difficult birth of two nations – here Puri records a series of remarkable first-hand testimonies, as well as those of their children and grandchildren whose lives are shaped by partition's legacy. With empathy, nuance and humanity, Puri weaves a breathtaking tapestry of human experience over a period of seven decades that trembles with life; an epic of ruptured families and friendships, extraordinary journeys and daring rescue missions that reverberates with pain, loss and compassion. The division of the Indian subcontinent happened far away, but it is also a very British story. Many of those affected by partition are now part of the fabric of British contemporary life, but their lives continue to be touched by this traumatic event. Partition Voices breaks the silence and confronts the difficult truths at the heart of Britain's shared history with South Asia.

    The monograph vociferouslydemanded that socialism be sacrificed for a competitive market economic system, so India cangrow at 10 per cent per year, achieve self-reliance, full employment and produce nuclear weaponry.The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi denounced the plan as dangerous.Fifty years later, Swamy redefines his path-breaking ideas on India-specific economic developmentin his seminal work, Reset. It undertakes a nuanced analysis of the manner in which the highlyprosperous Indian economy witnessed a long, accelerated decline due to persistent British imperialistaggression, and compares the distinctive manner in which Asian giants—India and China—sufferedat the hands of imperialism. He critically analyses the highs and lows of the Nehruvian model ofcentralized economic planning borrowed from the Soviet Union, and the debilitating circumstancesthat impelled him, as Commerce Minister in Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s government, todraw up a blueprint for economic reforms.

    one of these is the red pamphlets that were thrown in the Central Assembly Hall, New Delhi at the time of the throwing voice bombs. Other one is the letter that he wrote to authorities about his point of view on his sentence, after getting death penalty in Lahore Conspiracy Case ,

    Based on research, interviews and the author's own experiences, this book is invaluable for its insight into the inner workings of politics, political parties and what really makes for a winning election campaign.Shivam Shankar Singh headed data analytics and campaigns for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Manipur and Tripura Legislative Assembly elections under the guidance of the party's National General Secretary, Ram Madhav. He was a Senior Research Fellow at India Foundation, and briefly worked with Prashant Kishor's company, IPAC, during the Punjab Legislative Assembly campaign. He was a Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament (LAMP) Fellow and has graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a B.Sc. in Economics. His resignation from the BJP went viral on social media in June 2018 and was republished by various media platforms in multiple languages.

    Abhishek Singh's work is acclaimed around the world for its unique style and storytelling with compelling illustrations and enthralling text, Singh takes you into the fantastical worlds of ancient Indian mythology, deciphering its many symbolic humanistic and ecological layers.

    A former scientist with a bad temper and a good dose of old fashioned British pride, she does not need help from anyone - despite her derelict house and her body's many betrayals. With her sharp tongue, she gets through carers at a rate of knots. Until Susheela arrives. And Susheela, it turns out, is in even more trouble than Magda. Still reeling from the recent death of her mum and trying to prop up her heartbroken dad, she finds herself falling for Ewan, a beautiful, fragile young man recovering from the brutal experience of war. The two women - seemingly separated by class, culture and time - strike up an unlikely and sometimes uneasy friendship. Magda's no-nonsense approach to life turns out to be an unexpected source of strength for Susheela; and Susheela's Bengali heritage brings back memories of Magda's childhood in colonial India, a time filled with servants and privilege, and terrible secrets. Those memories slowly bring back to life the tragic figure of Magda's mother, Evelyn, once a warm hearted, and free-spirited school teacher in rural England who had her innocent optimism ground away by a controlling husband and the misery of being a respectable member of the Raj's ruling class - with devastating consequences.

    Through her five years of travelling across the villages of Tamil Nadu, Aparna Karthikeyan gets to know men and women who do exceptional—yet perfectly ordinary—things to earn a living. She documents, through ten of these stories, the transformations, aspirations and disruptions of the last twenty-five years. The people she meets force these questions of her, and her reader: What is the culture we seek to preserve? What will become of food security without farmers? How can ‘development’ exclude 833 million people? Including interviews with journalist P. Sainath, musician T.M. Krishna and writer Bama, among others, Nine Rupees an Hour is a critical portrayal of the drastic and systematic erosion of traditional livelihoods.These engaging narratives unravel a peoples’ perspective of work and life, where creative beauty and human dignity merge to matter, even if their worth in market-obsessed economics is merely nine rupees an hour. Evocative and relevant, they jostle our comfort. Statistics and economic analyses of wages and work, juxtaposed with the lives people lead, help us understand the situation on the ground. A book all of us must read’—Aruna Roy, Social activistSustainable livelihoods provide the foundation for a happy life. We owe a deep sense of gratitude to Aparna Karthikeyan for bringing out this useful book based on real-life examples. I hope the book will be widely read. —M.S. Swaminathan, plant geneticist and agricultural scientist

    

    While temples were destroyed on a considerable scale, also noteworthy were the repeated endeavours to reconstruct them. In each instance of rebirth, the temple retained its original name, even though there was a visible downsizing in its scale and grandeur. The Keshava temple at Mathura, the Vishwanath temple at Kashi, the Somnath temple in Saurashtra, the Rama mandir at Ayodhya were among the shrines continually restored, well after Hindus had lost all semblance of political power. The Bindu Madhava, the most important Vishnu temple in Varanasi, was demolished in 1669 and a mosque constructed in its place. The temple now bearing the name Bindu Madhava is a modest structure in the shadow of the mosque, but continues the traditions associated with the site. Intriguingly, mosques built on temple sites often retained the sacred names —Bijamandal mosque, Lat masjid, Atala masjid, Gyanvapi mosque, and not to forget, masjid-i- janamsthan.Equally worthy of study was the fate of images enshrined in temples. Many were swiftly removed by anxious devotees, many more were hurriedly buried; some remained on the move for decades, till such time they could be escorted back to their abodes. In several cases, images were damaged in flight. Countless images were lost, as their places of burial were forgotten over time. That necessitated the consecration of new images in more peaceable circumstances. So there were temples of the tenth-eleventh centuries, which housed images instated in the sixteenth. In situations where neither temple nor image could be safeguarded, the memory endured, and a shrine was recreated after an interval of several centuries.

    A man who in the first part of his life wanted Hindu–Muslim unity yet later became the father of Hindutva. A man who called for complete independence twenty years before the Congress but didn’t participate in the Quit India movement. A man who in his younger days was friendly with Gandhi but was later seen as the inspiration behind his killing.Based on Savarkar’s original Marathi papers, accounts of his contemporaries, several of them untranslated from Marathi, court and government records, and newspapers of the time, this new biography is packed with fresh details. Written in a lively, page-turning style, this is a riveting and unbiased account of Savarkar’s life, and the only book you will need to truly understand him.

    Every afternoon, at precisely 3 o'clock, she hears the sound of unknown footsteps. Every afternoon, she peeks out ... but no one is there. In a state of growing panic, Amma Bi considers moving to an old people's home, before finally taking in a lodger - a winsome young woman named Sabiha. Her arrival fills Amma Bi's lonely world with love and laughter, and Jumman, the household help, is transformed as well. When Sabiha finds herself in trouble, Amma Bi must draw on hidden reserves of skill and empathy in order to resolve the situation... Dopehri - legendary film and theatre personality Pankaj Kapur's first novel - is a wonderfully evocative work of great charm, wry humour and quiet power, a story that readers will fall in love with.

    When she is finally sent away to her husband's home as a young woman, she finds herself drawn deeply and powerfully towards the gruff and handsome Bheema. Bheema, however, is far from the ideal husband, and when he strays one time too many, Bhaunri's love for him begins to fester and grow into something dark and fearsome. Anukrti Upadhyay's short novel Bhaunri is a story of obsessive love and the destructive power of desire. Half-real and half-fable, and redolent with the songs and myths, the beauty and mystery of Rajasthan, it announces the arrival of a powerful new literary talent.

    A room without a window is rather like a prison cell, and the soul is inclined to shrivel up in a confined space. ... Car horns, children calling to each other as they return from school, a boy selling candyfloss, several crows chasing a hawk! Never a dull moment. And the magic mountain looks on, absorbing everything.

    He describes his gut-wrenching experiences of growing up in a Dalit basti, the multiple humiliations suffered by Dalits on a daily basis, and their incredible resilience enabled by love and humour. As he brings to light the immovable glass ceiling that exists for Dalits even in politics, bureaucracy and judiciary, Yengde provides an unflinchingly honest account of divisions within the Dalit community itself—from their internal caste divisions to the conduct of elite Dalits and their tokenized forms of modern-day untouchability—all operating under the inescapable influences of Brahminical doctrines.This path-breaking book reveals how caste crushes human creativity and is disturbingly similar to other forms of oppression, such as race, class and gender. At once a reflection on inequality and a call to arms, Caste Matters argues that until Dalits lay claim to power and Brahmins join hands against Brahminism to effect real transformation, caste will continue to matter.

    Sadabahar entranced even snakes and spirits with her music, but eventually gave her voice to Baba Court Shaheed. Her foster mothers Bullan and Kallan fought their malevolent brother and an unjust colonial law all the way to the Privy Council—and lost everything. Their great-granddaughter Teema paid for the family’s ruination with her childhood and her body. Bindo, Asghari, Phoolmani, Pyaari … there are so many stories in this family. And you—one of the best-known tawaifs of your times—remember the stories of your foremothers and your own.This is a history, a multi-generational chronicle of one family of well-known tawaifs with roots in Banaras and Bhabua. Through their stories and self-histories, Saba Dewan explores the nuances that conventional narratives have erased, papered over or wilfully rewritten.In a not-so-distant past, tawaifs played a crucial role in the social and cultural life of northern India. They were skilled singers and dancers, and also companions and lovers to men from the local elite. It is from the art practice of tawaifs that kathak evolved and the purab ang thumri singing of Banaras was born. At a time when women were denied access to the letters, tawaifs had a grounding in literature and politics, and their kothas were centres of cultural refinement.Yet, as affluent and powerful as they were, tawaifs were marked by the stigma of being women in the public gaze, accessible to all. In the colonial and nationalist discourse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this stigma deepened into criminalisation and the violent dismantling of a community. Tawaifnama is the story of that process of change, a nuanced and powerful microhistory set against the sweep of Indian history.

    In this dramatic account, Kim A. Wagner details the perspectives of ordinary people and argues that General Dyer’s order to open fire at Jallianwalla Bagh was an act of fear. Situating the massacre within the "deep" context of British colonial mentality and the local dynamics of Indian nationalism, Wagner provides a genuinely nuanced approach to the bloody history of the British Empire.

    For three years, he crisscrossed the state and discovered a land that was nothing like the one he had imagined and not like the stories he had heard.Present-day Panjab prides itself on legends of its military and valorous past even as it struggles with daily horrors. The Green Revolution has wreaked ecological havoc in the state, and a decade and a half of militancy has destabilised its economy and governance. Sikhism—the state’s eclectic and syncretic religion— is in crisis, its gatekeepers brooking no dissent and giving little spiritual guidance. And Panjab has yet to recover from the loss of its other half, now in Pakistan.Underneath it all, though, the old spirit of the land beats away— an undercurrent of resistance to power and hegemony that holds the hope that Panjab’s unyielding knots can be untied.

    He was handpicked to lead the Delhi Police Force at a time when India’s capital was in a crisis. He also stood at the helm of the world’s largest border force, which secures India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.In the pages of this searing memoir, readers will be treated with the inside story of the creation of Special Task Force, of the elimination of the dreaded Shri Prakash Shukla, the exposing of the match-fixing scandal, the hunting down of ISI terrorist Ghazi Baba and the dynamic response to the 2001 Parliament attack, amongst many others.Biting the Bullet is a trailblazing account of a life full of tackling dacoits, encounters, shootouts and terror attacks, all the while giving an insight into the mind and heart of this police officer as he makes life-changing decisions.

    In India, adding to the development of Dalit literature in the English language, this short story collection is a significant contribution since, in the domain of fiction, it has introduced Dalit/ Ambedkari perspective as a literary imagination. It contains six short stories, and most of them portray the internal complex of a Dalit youth in urban spaces, and them leading to assertion against caste.

    

    The market is flush with capital, and the internet and emerging technologies have lowered costs and nearly levelled the playing field. The Indian digital ecosystem is ready to explode. The romance of the start-up story fills media column inches.But, for every new venture that made it, there are numerous others that didn’t. The untold story of the successes is that every one of them almost didn’t make it. Each one had a near-death experience, almost shut down, almost sold itself too short—in short, almost ‘blew it’. How I Almost Blew It talks to some of India’s biggest entrepreneurs—Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Info Edge and Naukri.com), Deep Kalra (MakeMyTrip), Deepinder Goyal (Zomato), Ashish Hemrajani (BookMyShow), Sahil Barua (Delhivery) and Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks) and others—to tell stories that shock, reveal and inspire. Quick-thinking, astute decision-making and—occasionally—sheer dumb luck is what stood between them and the abyss. These heart-stopping stories of near-fiascos are industry wisdom, yes, but also critical life lessons. In the book, Sidharth Rao narrates the tales of the start-up industry titans. The industry leaders covered in the book include: SANJEEV BIKHCHANDANI (Info Edge India - Naukri.com) KUNAL SHAH (FreeCharge) MURUGAVEL JANAKIRAMAN (Bharat Matrimony) AJIT BALAKRISHNAN (Rediff.com) ANUPAM MITTAL (People Group) ASHISH HEMRAJANI (BookMyShow) BRIJESH AGARWAL (IndiaMART) JITENDRA GUPTA (Citrus Pay) DEEPINDER GOYAL (Zomato) DEEP KALRA (MakeMyTrip) PRADEEP KAR (Microland) SATYAN GAJWANI (Times Internet) RAJESH JAIN (IndiaWorld) SAHIL BARUA (Delhivery) ALOK MITTAL (JobsAhead.com) R. RAMARAJ (Sify) GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM (Freshworks)

    Beyond statistics, there are stories, often unreported—of women in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, who are routinely raped if they spurn the advances of men; of girls from de-notified tribes in Central India who have no recourse to justice if sexually violated; of victimized lower-caste girls in small-town Baduan, Uttar Pradesh. There are also stories of custodial rape, non-consensual incest and trafficking.Priyanka Dubey travels through large swathes of India, over a period of six years, to uncover the accounts of disenfranchised women who are caught in the grip of patriarchy. Equally, she asks if after the globally-reported December 2012 gang-rape of Nirbhaya in New Delhi, India’s gender narrative has shifted—and if it hasn’t, what needs to be done to make this a nation worthy of its intrepid girls.

    In Khaki Files, Neeraj Kumar, a former Delhi Police Commissioner revisits many such high profile police cases of his career -from investigation of one of the biggest lottery frauds in the country to foiled ISI attempt to kill Tarun Tejpal and Anirudh Behal of Tehalka-bringing to light numerous achievements of the country's police force, otherwise largely reviled and ridiculed.

    While her brothers were blessed with the traits of eagles, falcons and hawks, she was imbued with the qualities of a parrot. Her brothers achieve renown across the empire. . .while she’s ridiculed and shunned. Kautilya’s life flips upside down, however, when her family is betrayed. Now, in order to restore her father’s legacy—and claim the throne—she must organize the greatest rebellion her nation has ever seen. But the enemy is always one step ahead, willing to go to any lengths to win. And her only allies are a group of misfits, plus a paltry army hidden in the forests. Will Kautilya regain the throne and have vengeance? Or is her burgeoning resistance doomed to fail? If you enjoyed The Immortals of Meluha and The Palace of Illusions, then dive into this fantasy adventure with: a mythical world; relatable characters; and heavy doses of magic, romance, battles and betrayals.

    all while making new best friends!** Book Includes: **INFO-ZOOM: Who is Ganesha?Ganesha's Elephant HeadINFO-RECAP: Pictorial summary of Ganesha's Birthday** Parents: **Our books provide a glimpse into the beautiful cultural diversity of India, including occasional mythology references. ** Check out our website: ** For more kids products and to sign up for book updates please visit: http: //www.CultureGroove.com/books

    Muthulakshmi Reddy got the permission of the Maharaja of Pudukkottai to study in his college but when she would walk on the road she was pelted with shoes for daring to study! 14-Year-old anandibai Joshi lost her infant son at birth because women could not go to male doctors. Instead of succumbing to her sorrow, the young girl made up her mind to become a doctor herself. If millions of girls today are going to school, choosing what they want to study and deciding where they want to work, It is because of the tireless fight of these pioneering women who fought against all odds to clear the path for them. Amar Chitra Katha pays tribute to all those indomitable women who lit the way, for Indian women, with the fire of their spirit.

    Convicted and hanged by the British in 1931 for his role in killing a colonial police officer in the Lahore Conspiracy Case, he became a martyr at the young age of twenty-three, leaving behind an inspiring legacy. Tales of Bhagat Singh’s heroism and bravery are part of popular folklore, as it were – how he exploded bombs at the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and showered leaflets on the legislators before surrendering himself to the authorities, or how he led Indian political prisoners in a hunger strike demanding better conditions in jail. The Bhagat Singh Reader brings into prominence his less widely known intellectual output. It presents in a single volume a collection of his writings and thoughts: from his letters, telegrams and notices to articles that chalk out his subversive and progressive ideas, and his mails from prison to the colonial administration and judiciary. His forty-three sketches of Indian freedom fighters throw light on the larger picture of the independence struggle. This is a book that reveals Bhagat Singh the man and the thinker, the Marxist and the idealist.

    These are some of the triggers that drove the women captured in these pages to become lawbreakers.Queens of Crime demonstrates a haunting criminal power that most people do not associate women with. The acts of depravity described in this book will jolt you to the core, ensuring you have sleepless nights for months.Based on painstaking research, these are raw, violent and seemingly unbelievable but true rendition of India's women criminals.

    With many job offers in hand, Neera is in a quandary about the choice she has to make. A brilliant scholar who secured his Ph.D. at the young age of twenty-six, Dr. Prakash Rao has had a long-standing relationship with crime and espionage from his college days. In a riveting tale of crime, perseverance, valiance, and quick-wit, The Invisible Protectors is about the resolve of these two agents as they delve into the truth behind the death of three Indian spies. Though they died in accidents, the Agency believes they were murdered.

    A few years later, he returns to Banaras to write that book.Plunging into its timeless aura, he roams its ghats and galis, sails through the cool breeze of the Ganga, walks through the heat of funeral pyres. One moment he is observing a sadhu show off his penile strength, in the next he is on a boat with a young woman who has been prophesied to marry seven times; one moment he is in conversation with the celebrated writer Kashinath Singh, who is an atheist, and in the next he is having tea with a globe- trotting priest and a god-fearing doctor ... Ghosh finds a story in every bend as he engages with quintessential Banarasis—their paan-stuffed mouths spouting expletives and wisdom with equal flair—and discovers why they are among the happiest people on earth. Then one evening at Manikarnika, as he emerges from a temple, wearing ash from the cremation ground on his forehead, he finds a bit of Banaras in himself. Aimless in Banaras is not only a sensuous portrait of India’s holiest city but also a meditation on life—and death.

    He rejects the pursuit of wealth and power as the measure of a man’s worth. In distant Jhang, the spirited Heer Syal is an accomplished warrior who fearlessly challenges the norms of her community. Heer and Ranjha are destined to meet and fall in love—the former chastised for her ‘manly’ pursuits and the latter ridiculed for his lack thereof.Told from multiple perspectives, set against the lush riverbanks and rugged countryside of West Punjab, this is a wise, passionate and lyrical retelling of one of the subcontinent’s most beloved epics. A rich cast of characters—Kaido Langra, Jhang’s seemingly pious conscience-keeper; Malki, the mother of a daughter she cannot understand; Seida Khera, Heer’s hapless fiancé; a silent, watchful crow; a flock of excitable pigeons who bear witness and a philosophical goat—all play their part in bringing this stirring story to life.Manjul Bajaj scratches away at the many meanings of love in the timeless tale of Heer–Ranjha, who dreamt not only of love for themselves but of a kinder, freer and fairer world for all of creation.

    A Man from Mandu is a book of deception, transformation and growth. Read about Dhawal and his metamorphosis into Avishkar Baba, the Sadhu of Stories, and about Tarini who is promoting him so successfully. But what does the scheming Tarini have to gain?

    I had to see it! But how? I had no tickets, no plans, no information, no money and no clue - but the Patron Saint of Idiots blessed me. A series of miracles - the world’s strangest job interview, a miserable unreserved train journey, serendipitous stays - got me to the Kumbh Mela - and then onward to the holy city of Varanasi. Before this trip, I lost my backpacking virginity in an epic off-the-cuff trip to East India. We escaped our office cubicles to bumble through Bengal and thereabouts - from Calcutta to Kamakhya! We explored historical cities, ‘Shangri La’s in the mountains, forgotten palaces, old war zones, ancient tantric temples and wild jungles full of rhinos and elephants. The Patron Saint of Idiots had a full time job taking care of us! - we missed trains, lost our reservations, got drunk….and even blundered into ancient minefields with unexploded mines Hilarious, informative and inspirational - this is the Indian travel story you need to read. ----------------------------- Ketan Joshi is the author of the best-selling ‘Three men on motorcycles’ series, and has explored India extensively on foot and on two wheels.

    In these heart-warming stories, Bond talks of the various elements of nature as if theyare members of his family. He also endows the flora and fauna that he encounters with distinctpersonalities, and himself recedes into the background as a silent observer.From the mountains to the trees, from the birds that fly to his cottage, bringing a whiff of thefaraway forests they come from, to the winding paths that lead to charming gardens, Petals on theGanga will take you to nooks and corners, opening up scenes of myriad beauty.

    In wild Himalaya, award-winning author Stephen alter brings alive the greatest mountain range on Earth in all its terrifying beauty, grandeur and complexity. Travelling to all the five countries that the Himalayan range traverses—India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and China— Alter braids together on-the-ground reports with a deep understanding and study of the history, science, geology, environment, flora, fauna, myth, folklore, spirituality, climate and human settlements of the region to provide a nuanced and rich portrait of these legendary mountains. Adding colour to the narrative are riveting tales unearthed by the author of some of the range’s most storied peaks—Everest or Chomolungma, Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat and others. The book is divided into eight sections which delve deep into particular aspects of the Himalaya. ‘Orogenesis’ explores the origin, evolution, geology, geography and other such core aspects of these mountains; ‘the third pole’ concerns itself with weather, glaciers, wetlands and rivers; ‘Flora himalensis’ details extraordinary Himalayan plants and trees; ‘winged migrants’ goes deep into the world of Himalayan birds and insects; in ‘mountain mammals’ we cross high passes and go above the tree line in search of Brown bears, Blue sheep and snow leopards; ‘ancestral journeys’ takes a close look at human settlement in the Himalaya and stories of origin and migration, both ancient and contemporary; ‘at the edge of beyond’ recounts epic adventures and great mountaineering feats; and, finally, ‘in a thousand ages of the gods’ the author examines the essence of Himalayan art, folklore and mythology as well as enigmatic mysteries such as the existence of the Yeti, along with key questions of conservation. Although there have been hundreds of books and some masterpieces, about one or the other aspect of the Himalaya, not one of them has come close to capturing the incredible complexity and majesty of these mountains. Until now. In wild Himalaya, Stephen Alter, who considers himself an endemic species (having spent most of his life in these mountains), gives us the definitive natural history of the greatest mountain range on Earth.

    In the town live three generations of two families, one Hindu and the other Muslim, whose lives will be changed forever by the coming violence. At risk are Dada, the ageing grandfather who lovingly tends and talks to the plants on his estate; his strong-willed grandchildren, Abu and Fareeda; the newly married Devaki, who cannot fathom the forces that are turning her husband and her father into fanatics; Mariam, of the gifted hands, who kneads and pounds the fatigued muscles of tourists into submission; and Garuda, the high-school teacher who, in his own desperate way, is trying to impart the truth about the country’s history to a classroom of uninterested students. Quietly but surely, the spectre of religious intolerance is beginning to haunt the community in the guise of the Self-Respect Forum whose mission is to divide the town and destroy the delicate balance of respect and cooperation that has existed for hundreds of years. Told with brilliance, restraint and extraordinary power, Annie Zaidi’s book is destined to become a classic.

    The only woman, and the only person without a weapon, she walked alongside the militants for seven nights across 150 miles of the dense, hilly forests of eastern India. Nightmarch is the riveting story of Shah’s journey, grounded in her years of living with India’s tribal people, an eye-opening exploration of the movement’s history and future and a powerful contemplation on how disadvantaged people fight back against unjust systems in today’s world.   The Naxalites have fought for a communist society for the past fifty years, caught in a conflict that has so far claimed at least forty thousand lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about these fighters in the West. Framed by the Indian state as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is actually made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants, all of whom seek to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades. In Nightmarch, Shah shares some of their gritty untold stories: a high-caste leader who had been underground for almost thirty years, a young Adivasi foot soldier, and an Adivasi youth who defected. Speaking with them and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah has sought to understand why some of India’s poor have shunned the world’s largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society—and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims.    By shining a light on this largely ignored corner of the world, Shah raises important questions about the uncaring advance of capitalism and offers a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.

    Yet, wild can be gentle, welcoming, and inspiring, too. This is the wild that preoccupies biologist Shankar Raman as he writes about trees and bamboos, hornbills and elephants, leopards and myriad other species. Species found not just out there in far wildernesses - from the Thar desert to the Kalakad rainforests, from Narcondam Island to Namdapha - but amid us, in gardens and cities, in farms, along roadsides. And he writes about the forces that gouge land and disfigure landscapes, rip trees and shred forests, pollute rivers and contaminate the air, slaughter animals along roads and rail tracks - impelling a motivation to care, and to conserve nature.Through this collection of essays, Shankar Raman attempts to blur, if not dispel, the sharp separation between humans and nature, to lead you to discover that the wild heart of India beats in your chest, too.

    Cyril Radcliffe's hands are clammy, partly from the heat but mostly from the enormity of the task assigned. Mopping the sweat off his brow, he picks up his pen, draws a deep breath--and a dark line.Rawalpindi. A barbaric frenzy of rioters fills the streets, disrupting a game of pithoo between Toshi and her brother, Tarlok, shattering their lives unimaginably.2008Rawalpindi. Cricket-crazy Inaya is sneaking out behind her father's back for net practice when she discovers that she is not the only one in her family keeping a secret.New Delhi. Jai accidentally stumbles upon an old, hidden away diary in his kitchen. The date of its last entry: 17 August 1947.As Jai and Inaya's unlikely worlds collide, another story unfolds. A story that started with the drawing of a line. A story that shifts the truth in their lives.'Compelling and uplifting . . . lingers long after the last page is turned' -Vidya Balan

    In a matter of weeks, the series became a national obsession. During the Ramayan slot, roads emptied out. No marriages and political rallies were scheduled for that time. More than three decades later, there has been nothing to match it.Ramanand Sagar, the man behind the phenomenon and a successful filmmaker from Bombay, was among the first to recognise the immense power of television. He first made his mark as a writer in Raj Kapoor’s Barsat (1949). From 1961 to 1970, Sagar wrote, produced and directed six consecutive silver jubilee hits—Ghunghat, Zindagi, Arzoo, Ankhen, Geet and Lalkar.An Epic Life: Ramanand Sagar, From Barsaat to Ramayan, written by his son, Prem Sagar, an award-winning cinematographer, is an intimate look at the life of a visionary. It traces Sagar’s life from his birth in Kashmir in 1917, his dramatic escape in 1947 when Pakistani tribesmen attacked the state, his arrival in Bombay and his subsequent glorious career—the crowning achievement of which was the smashing success of Ramayan.

    The economic boom impacted a large section of Indians, even if unequally. With sustained high growth over an extended period, India could have achieved what economists call a 'take-off' (rapid and self-sustained GDP growth). The global financial meltdown disrupted this momentum in 2008. In the decade that followed, each time the country's economy came close to returning to that growth trajectory, political events knocked it off course.In 2019, India's GDP is growing at the rate of 7 per cent, making it the fastest-growing major economy in the world, but little on the ground suggests that Indians are actually better off. Economic discontent and insecurity are on the rise, farmers are restive and land-owning classes are demanding quotas in government jobs. The middle class is palpably disaffected, the informal economy is struggling and big businesses are no longer expanding aggressively.India is not the star it was in 2008 and in effect, the 'India growth story' has devolved into 'growth without a story'. The Lost Decade tells the story of the slide and examines the political context in which the Indian economy failed to recover lost momentum.

    Over the past decade and a half, energy security has been a constant driver of India's foreign policy. Successive Indian governments have emphasized it as a major concern, next only to food security. The long-term satisfaction of India's energy security needs calls for a fresh and multi-pronged approach. This is imperative in the light of the recent dynamics of India's foreign policy and the challenges that India is facing in its quest for energy security, mainly in the context of diversification of sources abroad and shift to alternative sources in a carbon-controlled environment. This is further intensified in the context of the complex and competitive strategic rivalry between India and China in the Indo-Pacific region, as India looks outward and expands its outreach to meet its pressing energy security challenges. The book presents an in-depth analysis of all such domestic and foreign policy challenges and measures to meet India's fast-growing energy demand in a competitive geopolitical environment.

    Governor-General Dalhousie has just won the Third Sikh War and he plans on gifting Queen Victoria the legendary Kohinoor.But the route from Punjab to Bombay, from where it will set sail to England, is infested with bandits. The only person Dalhousie trusts with the mission is the highly decorated Captain James Ramsay. Accompanying him is his beautiful Anglo-Indian mistress, Tara. Indian revolutionaries, however, are planning to ambush the train, because they know something that Dalhousie doesn’t: the Kohinoor is really the 5,000-year-old Syamantaka diamond. Lord Krishna’s stone.To stop it from leaving Indian shores, they will need to enlist the aid of the most wanted bandit, Ajmera.If he agrees, Ajmera will first have to break out of the dreaded Khoordah prison, where he has a date with the hangman. And he will have to face Ramsay’s forces and the wrath of Tara, a woman he abandoned on their wedding day, before he can get anywhere close to the Kohinoor.

    We cling onto age-old traditions, but a holiday can alter our accent. To us, caste and community is a badge of trust, religion is a line of control and a godman is an anti-depressant.We won’t stop at a zebra crossing, but we will damn well stop on it. We build things to prove our worth and break things to prove a point. We love the concept of independence, but we need our parents to help raise our kids. And we scripted the Kamasutra. Easy to forget, since we also ruined sex.So how do we tell the real from the farcical? The farcical from the nutty? And the nutty from the downright ridiculous?Easy. We just go along.Daksh Tyagi's funny and insightful 'A Nation of Idiots' is the ideal guide to surviving the modern Indian life with your scruples intact.

    Made-to-order for those with a taste for inventive idiosyncrasy, this book promises to provoke and entertain in equal measure. About the author: Ishavasyam took a sabbatical from her career in marketing to fulfil her childhood dream of writing a book. Besides weaving tall tales, she loves playing board games and belly dancing. She is a hoarder of art supplies, and has an alarming number of incomplete DIY projects. Ishavasyam lives with her husband, whom she adores to bits, to the point where she may soon give in to his incessant plea to get a dog.

    Circling themes of intimacy and time, they return to the urgency of conversation: that fragile bridge across the frozen attitudes that divide our world. But at the heart of the collection is a deeper preoccupation, with those blurry places where humans might walk with gods, where the body might touch the beyond, where the enchanted might intersect effortlessly with the everyday. Where one stumbles upon what the poet simply calls ‘love without a story’.

    In the face of gross mismanagement by those in power, Chennai lost lives, homes and livelihoods.Waters from the city’s many lakes, canals and rivers, which humans had usurped and eaten into with tar roads and concrete jungles, retraced their old routes and ate anything that came in their way. Like they did in Mumbai in 2005, Surat in 2006, Srinagar in 2014 and Kerala in 2018. As they might in Bangalore someday, or in Kolkata.To make sense of the horror of those days, Krupa Ge spent over three years filing RTIs, reading government documents and archival material, and interviewing stakeholders, journalists and the people of Chennai. What she arrives at is the shocking truth of how masterly inactivity drowned the city, and how it could happen again. And again.But the heart of the book is in the stories of the people, including Krupa’s own parents, who were caught up in the nightmare of the floods—of their resilience and kindness, and the faultlines of caste and class that the crisis exposed.‘Chennai’s history, tradition, culture and people are vital to the idea of a rich, diverse India. The floods that ravaged this great city should never be forgotten, to continually remind us of the stakes and hence our responsibilities. Combining historical documents, first-person accounts, interviews and government reports, this painstakingly researched book makes an important contribution to keeping such memories alive.’-Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor and besotted Chennaiite‘In December 2015, a city drowned when forgotten rivers and built-over lakes came back to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Weaving together Krupa’s own harrowing experience of the floods with that of others whose lives were forever changed, Rivers Remember also meticulously traces the why and how of what happened. Taut and incisive, this is a cautionary tale that serves to remind us we can only abuse nature so much, while telling the larger story of how urban planning works across India.’-Anita Nair‘The Cooum, Adyar and Kosasthalaiyar Rivers carry within their dark waters the future, present and the past of their city—Chennai. In December 2015, that city drowned. From deep within those unforgiving waters, Krupa Ge recovers stories, memories and truths of despair, nostalgia, neglect, discrimination, hope, tragedy, corruption, death and life. Through this telling, she warns us of a dystopian future where 2015 comes to stay, even as the death knell gets louder.-T.M. Krishna

    the same issue—minus the churches a contentious one in India, with both the history curriculum and the Allotment of authority over education being much discussed. Other themes partly overlap with and partly differ from those in the culture Wars in the US, where the term has gained currency to designate the debate between modern and religious world views. Specific to India are the debates about the definition of Hinduism and secularism, and the antagonisms within both. In a country where religion is inextricably woven into the social fabric, and multiple stratifications exist, ‘culture’ becomes a pervasive reality in every sphere of life. In this context, culture Wars assume a significance of great consequence—both immediate and far reaching. In Hindu dharma and the culture Wars, Koenraad Elst broaches a discussion on Hindu ideology, Hindu TV a and the Indian National identity, hoping to take this uniquely National conversation forward.

    The Vedas mention how female sages studied and composed mantras alongside the sages.God alone exists. The world is the play of His divine power or maya, and is not perfect. Perfection lies only in the divine.

    Then, Neil comes into her life, offering a heady romance and a new identity. Will Deeya give their fledgling relationship a chance?Perhaps the seeds of her answer have already been sown by her family - by her grandmother and mother, both of whom have been compelled to make complex negotiations with love.As Deeya confronts their stories, she must decide: Will she upend her family's history and build a narrative of her own? Or is she - as are all of us - destined to carry forward the concessions and mutinies of our ancestors?Refreshing in its vision and assured in its craft, These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light is a remarkable debut about (un)sanctioned memory, uncommon love, and the claims of familial history.

    Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun's clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature's own museums.Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.

    Not in the wintry hill town he lives in, and not in his school, where the lines are always straight. Backed into a corner with no way out, Kabir vanishes.With every adult's nightmare now coming true, finding this flyaway boy will mean understanding who he really is. Or is it too late?Spirited and powerfully imaginative, Flyaway Boy is a story about embracing everything that makes you uniquely you.

    Eager to shrug off her middle-class upbringing, Vedika actively befriends her elite neighbours. Over time, though, she begins to sense that something is affecting her five-year-old son, Sajan. He seems foggy at times, unable to follow simple orders. A few other Fantasia children show similar behavioural oddities. Before his scheduled appointment with a doctor, Sajan dies in a freak accident. Vedika is jolted out of her numbing grief by a shocking revelation: her boy was murdered. Anxious to find out what exactly happened to her son, Vedika starts investigating his death. As she unravels her memories and neighbours’ pasts, she finds sinister links between Fantasia and her own past. Gripping, tense and disquieting No Trespassing is a stunning work of fiction.

    ‘Wari’ came to be heard and ‘Wari’ continues to be told... ‘Wari’ which means ‘story’ in Manipuri brings you a cauldron of contemporary Manipuri fiction seasoned with age-old tales of magic, black art and deep cultural beliefs that are unique to the state and its people. Linthoi Chanu is the author of ‘The Tales of Kanglei Throne’, her debut book based on mythological stories of Manipur. From an old woman who refuses to die to a small girl venturing into the unknown, Linthoi Chanu’s ‘Wari’ is a collection of eight unusual stories that introduces readers to the rich socio-cultural traditions of Manipur.

    Now, sparks are flying between her and a sexy bartender but will this relationship fizzle out too? Young professionals Nilima and her husband can give the word ‘soulmate’ a complex. Theirs is a match made in heaven…till disaster strikes. The Magician is the story of 3 strong women who discover true love through heartbreak, loss & longing. A standalone book in the Tarot Trilogy. Dear Reader, I like to say my book is a contemporary Urban Romance /Women's fiction set in India. Do check it out.

    Here’s a special edition that curates eleven of the most interesting, unheard, and thought-provoking tales from the scriptures, the epics, and the Puranas and correlates them to our present-day situations. By presenting the complexities of these texts in a modern, accessible format, the book leaves you, the reader, richer with its glorious learnings. Mystical tales for a magical life is a wonderful, wise companion that nourishes and nurtures at any and every stage in life.About the AuthorShubha Vilas is a TEDx speaker, lifestyle coach, storyteller, and author. He studied patent law after completing his engineering degree but, finally, chose the path of a spiritual seeker. ‘Ramayana: The Game of Life’ is his bestselling series. He’s also the author of Open-Eyed Meditations and Perfect Love: 5.5 ways to a lasting relationship. The focus of his work is the application of scriptural wisdom in day-to-day living, addressing the needs of corporates and youth through thought-provoking seminars. He has delivered more than 4000 lectures across the globe. He is also a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management. To know more about him, visit www.shubhavilas.com.

    For nearly two decades, S. Giridhar has been crisscrossing the country in the course of his work with the Azim Premji Foundation, travelling to remote corners and observing the public education system. In these years, he has met hundreds of government school teachers—profoundly committed to improving the lives of the children in their care. These are teachers who defy all constraints because of a burning belief that every child can learn. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Teachers has emerged from Giridhar’s in-depth study of these inspirational teachers and the ecosystem they function in. Innovative and creative, dogged and resourceful, firm and kind—the government school teacher wears many a hat. This book is a tribute to their commitment and resilience.

    Little does she know that everything she seeks to learn about love will be revealed in the battle to keep Evan alive.The Year of Facing Fire is a brilliantly penned memoir about a dynamic South African family: Maja, the combative but inspired mother; Lexi, the sister who has been living in an Indian temple; Ross, the brother who dives with sharks but is kept in the dark about his older brother’s condition. And at the centre is beautiful Evan, terminally ill and magically insightful, as death comes ever closer. The narrator craves facts and certainty, but death has a way of destroying all illusion of control.

    The Tamil Tigers, who had waged a three-decade-long war of national liberation, were militarily defeated. But some of their ranks survived. Santhia was one. After the war, she and her infant son tried to reach Australia but were stranded in Indonesia. Santhia died in a Jakarta hospital in October 2017 aged just forty-two.Sponsored by the Tamil Refugee Council, Ben Hillier travelled to Indonesia and Sri Lanka after Santhia's death to piece together her life. In this essay, she appears as an individual expression of a nationals fight for liberation. The piece is paired with a seminal document, Liberation Tigers and Tamil Eelam freedom struggle, written in 1983 by Anton Balasingham on behalf of the Tigers' political committee."A remarkable essay ... All those interested in contemporary struggles for self-determination should read this." - Gill H. Boehringer, former head of Macquarie University Law School"An excellent background to the ongoing Eelam Tamil struggle" - N. Malathy, author of A fleeting moment in my country: the last years of the LTTE de-facto state"A compelling account of the struggle for independence" - Ana Pararajasingham, editor of Sri Lanka: 60 years of "independence" and beyond"An important and moving contribution" - Helen Jarvis, vice president of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal"An honest appraisal of what happened to members of the Tigers" - Lee Rhiannon, former Australian Greens federal senator

    From C for chai to Y for yoga, this fresh alphabet book takes young readers on a spirited journey to discover the people, places, lifestyles, and language of India. Lush illustrations from debut illustrator Hazel Ito bring to life the beauty, wonder, and diversity of this vast and vibrant country.

    For some reason, each uncle had a son named Ebrahim. What a stupid idea. It made me feel like a sausage from a boerewors factory.” In this part memoir and part satire, Ebrahim Essa chronicles a quirky childhood growing up in the 1950s in an Indian township on the outskirts of the South African port city of Durban. Here, he bunks school to watch Hindi films, irons his brothers clothes to access banned imported comic books and tries to outrun gangsters in the Grey Street Casbah. Just as he begins to win at life, apartheid education prompts his father to send him to India to study. He spends 21 days on board the SS Karanja nervously snacking on Lemon Creams before reaching Bombay. But studying in India isn’t all that it’s made out to be. It’s worse. He battles jaundice, long-drop toilets and electricity cuts during the ‘65 India-Pakistan war. Ebrahim Essa tickles and pokes even as he documents a fascinating period in the South African Indian community. About the author: Ebrahim Essa is a comic-book and Hindi film aficionado based in Durban. He taught high school Physical Science for 30 years before retiring in 2016. He is a widely published letter writer to various newspapers across South Africa, the author of “The Life Story of Suliman Essa Patel” and was also a contributor to the anthology Undressing Durban (Madiba Press, 2007). EB Koybie is his first book.

    

    A seriously funny book where even the saddest of events, including sickness and death, is dealt with a light touch.’ The Hindu‘If you haven’t read The Monsters Still Lurk, then you should, immediately. It’s brilliant. It’s the Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham that we deserve.’ Anuja Chauhan'Aruna Nambiar infuses her stories with such warmth and humour that, as you read, you feel it is all happening to you.' Shinie Antony ‘A wonderful tale… a potential sleeper hit.’ New Asian Writing.com ‘The heartache of growing up and growing old is captured beautifully. The book has plenty of Aruna's trademark humour, and has to be read slowly, so one can savour it and enjoy all the different emotions it brings to the surface.’ Andaleeb Wajid'Brilliant, brilliant book. A fun, superbly written read that never fails to pick me up. Plus full-on Bombay-of-my-bachpan nostalgia.' Kiran ManralIt is 1991. As Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated and a new government comes to power, setting in motion a process of economic reforms that will transform India, an ordinary family is about to experience detours from the traditional middle-class script of their lives. Over the next quarter century, as the world around them changes in ways unexpected, their lives too wind along uncharted trails, sometimes sunlit, sometimes shadowy and forbidding.Funny, perceptive and moving, The Monsters Still Lurk is a bittersweet saga of love, loss, ageing and shifting family dynamics, and a keenly observed portrait of post-liberalisation India that captures the zeitgeist of a rapidly evolving society.

    We can only salute the courage with which all these writers have let us into their lives, to give us a glimpse into the multiple worlds of what we have described and stigmatized as mental illness. Read them.’—JERRY PINTO, author Em and the Big Hoom and Murder in Mahim There are different sizes of bodies. There are different shades of the mind. There are different states of mind in distress. Side Effects of Living presents the words and verses of survivors, writers, poets and artists, who are struggling with a mental condition or have watched their loved ones suffer. Through first-person life experiences and moving poetry, they attempt to destigmatise mental health issues, as they describe what happens when the mind gives in—or gives up. Why does it happen, and can we do anything about it?Refreshingly honest, always uplifting, this collection urges us to reject the shame and blame that often accompanies mental illness.

    It marks the birth of the nation, it's liberation. More than 1000 miles away, in Pakistan too, 1971 marks a watershed moment, its memories sitting uncomfortably in public imagination. It is remembered as the 'Fall of Dacca', the dismemberment of Pakistan or the third Indo-Pak war. In India, 1971 represents something else-the story of humanitarian intervention, of triumph and valour that paved the way for India's rise as a military power, the beginning of its journey to becoming a regional superpower.Navigating the widely varied terrain that is 1971 across Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Anam Zakaria sifts through three distinct state narratives, and studies the institutionalization of the memory of the year and its events. Through a personal journey, she juxtaposes state narratives with people's history on the ground, bringing forth the nuanced experiences of those who lived through the war. Using intergenerational interviews, textbook analyses, visits to schools and travels to museums and sites commemorating 1971, Zakaria explores the ways in which 1971 is remembered and forgotten across countries, generations and communities.

    In this city they are not merely the outcomes of natural disasters or man-made cataclysms, but it is an event which we anticipate and look forward to." --- Premjish Achari

    The other accounts have the white colonial masters' self-righteous, played out by the Asian soldiers' narrative. This account shows that the mutiny was caused by the careless and poor communication of the British commanders and government officials and how they handled their men.In 1907, in the gathering storm of the First World War, a global revolt against the British Raj was taking shape. A shadowy network known as the Ghadar or Mutiny Movement plotted an Indian uprising that spilled across Britain’s Eastern Empire. In 1915, the snug settlement of Singapore thus faced a mutiny by its garrison of British Indian Army soldiers or sepoys.Stoked by Indian rebels based in California, Sikh activists on a migrant voyage to Canada to contest its race laws, a German sea raider, and renegades preaching Muslim holy war, the 1915 Singapore sepoy mutiny fused several plots against imperial power in the region.This book reveals the hidden history of the mutiny and exposes the forces that converged on the small island enroute to the revolt against the British Empire in India. The story of the men and women behind the world-wide rebellion and the Singapore mutiny is brought to life in this thrilling non-fiction narrative that spotlights the legacy of the forgotten uprisings.

    The Right's ascendancy and the debates that accompanied it, anticipated many of the concerns that find reflection today in the United States and Europe.The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism was also a profound intellectual challenge to the loose Left-liberal consensus that had prevailed in India since Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister in 1947. The idea of Hindutva and the political character of the BJP have been closely scrutinised by scholars, and the impulse has been to view India's Right-wing politics as either a variant of fascism or merely a collection of sectarian prejudices.In fact, the inspiration for the Right in India has come from multiple and often contradictory sources, including the influence of individuals such as Sarvarkar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, not to mention the Arya Samaj movement.This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West.This book is not about Hindu nationalism in power but as a social and political movement and its aim is to encourage a more informed understanding of an idea that will remain relevant in Indian life far beyond victories and defeats in elections.

    Arun. I am seven years old. My father’s name is Venkatesh. He is very good. He never gets mad at me. He buys me a lot of toys and chocolates... I love my father. That's a big bluff. Arun has never met his dad. He has only seen his photograph in the wedding album. And he hates him. Then one day, his father comes back. His mother has to take Arun to meet him once a month. It's a court order. His grandparents say that the man is very bad and might try to take him away from his mom. Arun is scared and angry. But why does the man keep bringing him gifts? Why does he play with dogs? Why does he climb like a monkey? Why does he keep saying 'Pop! Pop! Pop!'? As if Arun could ever start calling this strange man 'pops'!.

    Circumstances bring them together and they create the most effectiveenvironmental movement the world has ever seen. They shun the politics of criticism and personalattacks and focus on establishing a new polity based on the principles of environmental protection,habitat conservation, direct civil action and democratic decentralization.Oxygen Manifesto is an engaging story about environmental degradation and the impact of theAnthropocene. It exposes the myth around wealth creation and the paradigm of economic growth.It also plants a development narrative that is environment-centric—an idea which is consideredfringe in today’s times, but is bound to emerge as a mainstream thought in the future.The story also has an undercurrent of minimalism and veganism, as opposed to consumerism andwasteful consumption. A novel concept of taxing goods and services based on their carbon andwater footprint has also been introduced by the writer. This is a must-read for anyone who caresabout the future of human civilization.

    

    This book, the first in-depth history of the Hijra community, illuminates the colonial and postcolonial governance of gender and sexuality and the production of colonial knowledge. From the 1850s, colonial officials and middle class Indians increasingly expressed moral outrage at Hijras' feminine gender expression, sexuality, bodies and public performances. To the British, Hijras were an ungovernable population that posed a danger to colonial rule. In 1871, the colonial government passed a law that criminalised Hijras, with the explicit aim of causing Hijras' 'extermination'. But Hijras evaded police, kept on the move, broke the law and kept their cultural traditions alive. Based on extensive archival work in India and the UK, Jessica Hinchy argues that Hijras were criminalised not simply because of imported British norms, but due to a complex set of local factors, including elite Indian attitudes.

    Balakrishnan considers these issues to be not only interconnected but two sides of the same coin.This book aims to place new evidence about the Dravidian affiliation with the language of the Indus people and positions the ancient Sangam Tamil corpus as a proto-document that is relevant for understanding Tamil pre-history which had probable connections to the Indus Civilization. The spatial and temporal distances between the Indus Valley Civilization and ancient Thamizhagam can be a restricting factor to tracing remnants of the Dravidian in the northwestern geographies and its legacy markers in the Sangam texts. Using technological tools such as Geographic Information System (GIS), the author has analyzed what he calls the 'Journey of a Civilization’ and argues that place-names are reliable markers to track ancient migrations.The book celebrates the plural foundations of Indian culture and prefers a narrative of the ‘Rain Forest’ instead of the popular ‘Melting Pot’ metaphor. As P. J. Cherian observes, Balakrishnan has provided a road map for future research with far-reaching consequences. Journey of a Civilization: Indus to Vaigai seeks to establish common ground between the Indus Valley and Old Tamil traditions.

    He has been there for five years, but he hasn't been alone. The Family has kept him company. These are his multiple personalities that have emerged out of the dark. Mr Pickwick is the father figure with a habit of quoting from the Bible. Miss Trent is the nervous governess who dreads germs. Skinner is the street urchin with a smart answer for everything. The Infant Prodigy is a cranky genius. Together, this most unusual team of detectives tries to solve the mystery of why Castor was imprisoned. The clues lead them to the most fabulous jewel in the world - the Koh-i-Noor. The young Maharaja Duleep Singh has just arrived in England to present the diamond to Queen Victoria.Hunted by the deadly Blue Turbans, Castor and the Family race against time to unravel the connection between the diamond, his imprisonment and the disappearance of his parents.

    When the Girl Died throws up the Mathurs’ discomfiture when confronted with the news of a rape. In The Messenger, rational and cynical Aarti suddenly starts hallucinating about her late father. Is there an omen there? Young Anuja Grows Up as her family grapples with the skeletons tumbling out of their tightly guarded closet. In Amma, a celebrated classical singer is resurrected after her passing by her devoted biographer. Finding Shobha describes a tuition teacher’s coming to terms with her erratically fluctuating mood and her rapidly emptying nest. In Of Swans and Songs, an extramarital affair breaks an acclaimed surgeon’s family that then tries to mend ties and move on towards a semblance of peace. And a fortuitous coming together of generations and cultures ensures that the Limayes enjoy A Happy Diwali. These are stories about seemingly ordinary, everyday people – the drama in their lives, in their struggles and dreams. Their emotional personas. The strength they find to overcome life’s roadblocks and rediscover the happy equilibrium that was once theirs.

    The mass murder at Cafe Mehboob, located barely a few hundred meters from the police station, and right next to one of the busiest railway stations in Mumbai, jolts the city out of its complacence. The media immediately swings into action, while political pressure mounts on the police force to nab the murderer.With everyone eager to place the blame of the murders on a madman in a bid to have the case dismissed swiftly, the headstrong inspector Intekhaab Abbas is determined to get to the bottom of the murders. On probing the lives of the victims, he stumbles upon a heady cocktail of love, lust, jealousy, betrayal, rage, longing, misery and ecstasy.Mehboob Murderer, Nupur Anand's debut novel, unravels a stunning truth neither the police nor the reader is prepared for.