The Weight of Heaven


Thrity Umrigar - 2009
    Umrigar illuminates how slowly we recover from unforgettable loss, how easily good intentions can turn evil, and how far a person will go to build a new world for those he loves.When Frank and Ellie Benton lose their only child, seven-year-old Benny, to a sudden illness, the perfect life they had built is shattered. Filled with wrenching memories, their Ann Arbor home becomes unbearable, and their marriage founders. But an unexpected job half a world away offers them an opportunity to start again. Life in Girbaug, India, holds promise—and peril—when Frank befriends Ramesh, a bright, curious boy who quickly becomes the focus of the grieving man's attentions. Haunted by memories of his dead son, Frank is consumed with making his family right—a quest that will lead him down an ever-darkening path with stark repercussions. Filled with satisfyingly real characters and glowing with local color, The Weight of Heaven is a rare glimpse of a family and a country struggling under pressures beyond their control. In a devastating look at cultural clashes and divides, Umrigar illuminates how slowly we recover from unforgettable loss, how easily good intentions can turn evil, and how far a person will go to build a new world for those he loves.

Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer


Cyrus Mistry - 2012
    Segregated and shunned from society, often wretchedly poor, theirs is a lot that nobody would willingly espouse. Yet thats exactly what Phiroze Elchidana, son of a revered Parsi priest, does when he falls in love with Sepideh, the daughter of an aging corpse bearer...Derived from a true story, Cyrus Mistrys extraordinary new novel is a moving account of tragic love that, at the same time, brings to vivid and unforgettable life the degradation experienced by those who inhabit the unforgiving margins of history.

Karna's Wife: The Outcast's Queen


Kavita Kané - 2013
    An accomplished Kshatriya princess who falls in love with and dares to choose the sutaputra over Arjun, Uruvi must come to terms with the social implications of her marriage and learn to use her love and intelligence to be accepted by Karna and his family. Though she becomes his mainstay, counselling and guiding him, his blind allegiance to Duryodhana is beyond her power to change. The story of Uruvi and Karna unfolds against the backdrop of the struggle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. As events build up leading to the great war of the Mahabharata, Uruvi is a witness to the twists and turns of Karna's fate; and how it is inextricably linked to divine design. A splendid saga from the pages of the Mahabharata, Karna's Wife: The Outcast s Queen brings its characters alive in all their majesty.

It Rained All Night


Buddhadeva Bose - 1967
    I, Maloti Mukherji, someone’s wife, and someone’s mother—I did it. Did it with Jayanto. Jayanto wanted me, and I him … How did it happen? Easy. In fact I don’t know why it didn’t happen before—I’m surprised at my self-restraint, at Jayanto’s patience.’ Banned when it was first published in the Bengali in 1967 on charges of obscenity, It Rained All Night went on to become a best-seller. Maloti, an attractive middle-class Bengali girl, marries the bookish college lecturer Nayonangshu only to find him insecure, sexually timid and unable to satisfy her. She discovers passion in the arms of the confident, earthy journalist Jayanto whose love provides her solace from the demands of her wifely duties. Maloti and Jayanto’s growing intimacy does not go unnoticed by Nayonangshu, but his pride restrains him from reaching out to his wife. Bold, explicit and shockingly candid, It Rained All Night is an unforgettable tale of desire, adultery, jealousy and love.

The Pregnant King


Devdutt Pattanaik - 2008
    Among the many characters who inhabit the Mahabharata, the world's greatest epic and the oldest, sometimes other stories unravelled from it, such as Shilavati, who cannot be king because she is a woman.

A Matter of Time


Shashi Deshpande - 1999
    His wife, Sumi, returns with their three daughters to the shelter of the Big House where her parents, Kalyani and Shripati, live in oppressive silence: they have not spoken to each other in thirty-five years. As the mystery of this long silence is unraveled, a horrifying story of suffering and loss is laid bare, a story that seems to be repeating itself in Sumi's life.Set in present day Karnataka, A Matter of Time explores the intricate relationships within an extended family encompassing three generations. Images from Hindu religion, myth, and local history twine delicately with images of contemporary India as this family faces and accepts the changes that have suddenly become part of their lives. As their secrets and strengths are revealed, so are the complications of family and culture. This multigenerational story, told in the individual voices of the characters, catches each in turn in the cycles of love, loss, strength, and renewal that become an essential part of their identities.

Nectar in a Sieve


Kamala Markandaya - 1954
    With remarkable fortitude and courage, she meets changing times and fights poverty and disaster.This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves—an unforgettable novel that "will wring your heart out" (The Associated Press).Named Notable Book of 1955 by the American Library Association.

Heat and Dust


Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - 1975
    Longing for passion and independence, Olivia is drawn into the spell of the Nawab, a minor Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots. She is intrigued by the Nawab's charm and aggressive courtship, and soon begins to spend most of her days in his company. But then she becomes pregnant, and unsure of the child's paternity, she is faced with a wrenching dilemma. Her reaction to the crisis humiliates her husband and outrages the British community, breeding a scandal that lives in collective memory long after her death.

The Discovery of India


Jawaharlal Nehru - 1991
    One of modern day's most articulate statesmen, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a on a wide variety of subjects. Describing himself as "a dabbler in many things," he committed his life not only to politics but also to nature and wild life, drama, poetry, history, and science, as well as many other fields. These two volumes help to illuminate the depth of his interests and knowledge and the skill and elegance with which he treated the written word!!

Listening Now


Anjana Appachana - 1998
    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.

Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai


R. Venketesh - 2013
    In the first week of its sale it reached the Amazon's Number one position of Historical fiction best seller lists. War is coming... An ancient kingdom will meet a devastating new enemy. Peninsular India, fourteenth century. The Pandyan empire is at its peak, its enemies subdued and its people at peace. Having left behind his step-brother Sundar in the race to the throne, Crown Prince Veera Pandyan is set to rule from Madurai, reputed to be the richest city in the subcontinent. But invisible fractures within the kingdom threaten to destroy it, and a new enemy approaches, swifter than anyone can imagine.In Delhi, Sultan Alauddin Khilji’s trusted general, the eunuch Malik Kafur, has trained his eyes on the distant south, fabled for its riches. A slave captured by the Khiljis, Kafur is renowned for his ambition and cunning. None, not even the mighty Mongols, have defeated him – no empire can withstand the trail of destruction he leaves in his wake. And all he wants is to see Madurai on its knees, its wealth pillaged, its temples destroyed.As an ancient city combusts in flames of treachery, bloodlust and revenge, brother will battle brother, ambition will triumph over love, slaves will rise to rule, cities will be razed to dust, and the victor will be immortalized in history...Official FB pagehttps://www.facebook.com/r.venketeshOnline storesAmazon.in http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/93500...Flipkarthttp://www.flipkart.com/gods-kings-sl...

Mumbaistan


Piyush Jha - 2012
    A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in BombDay. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilantes twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife and himself. Gritty love stories, manipulative cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of this unputdownable thriller. Its MUMBAISTAN all the way. Mumbai, a city of dreams for many. But for others, a nightmare. Behind the façade of lustre and glamour churns a seething underbelly of squalor, corruption and crime. Mumbaistan’s three explosive crime novellas unravel the subterranean secrets of maximum city—from the teeming maw of Dharavi and the wanton streets of Kamathipura to the swank high-rises of Bandra. A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in Bomb-Day. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilante’s twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife— and himself. Macabre love stories, conniving cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of a schizophrenic city that is brooding...dying. Welcome to Mumbaistan; a gritty, compelling take on the megalopolis that lives on the edge.

Bitter Sweets


Roopa Farooki - 2007
    Even as a child, their daughter Shona, herself conceived on a lie and born in a liar's house, finds telling fibs as easy as ABC. But years later, living above a sweatshop in South London's Tooting Bec, it is Shona who is forced to discover unspeakable truths about her loved ones and come to terms with what superficially holds her family together--and also keeps them apart--across geographical, emotional and cultural distance. Roopa Farooki has crafted an intelligent, engrossing and emotionally powerful Indian family saga that will stay with you long after you've read the last page.

Inga


Poile Sengupta - 2014
    Radiance upon radiance of laughter,chime upon bell chime of light sparkled and shone everywhere. It was as if the sky showered tiny star grains that scattered, glinting, on the hay heap we were cocooned in, they sparkled on the leaves of the jack fruit tree above and dusted my arms with gold. Who could resist such a dance of light? I couldnt, I never could. Almost never. Rapa is born into a Tamil Brahmin family, full of dark secrets. She is brought up in Delhi where an English education introduces her to literature that is both fascinating and foreign. Her summer holidays are spent in the confines of the family home in Kerala, where she has for companion her cousin Inga. But as the two girls grow up, their lives change through a tortuous, pain-filled process. Forty years after her death, Rapas husband has her notes published, the story of her struggles against her family, her marriage and her final encounter with Inga.A tragic tale of yearning and hope, of derision and rage, of miracles and dreams, of commitment and utter rejection.

രണ്ടാമൂഴം | Randamoozham


M.T. Vasudevan Nair - 1984
    T. Vasudevan Nair. It was translated into English as Second Turn in 1997. M. T. Vasudevan Nair won Vayalar Award, given for the best literary work in Malayalam, for the novel in 1985. Later, in the year 1995, Mr. Nair was awarded the highest literary award in India, Jnanpith Award, for his overall contribution to Malayalam literature.The novel is set as a retelling of the Indian epic Mahabharata, from the view of Bhima, the second Pandava.