In this book, Nikhil continues taking his readers along for a journey which try to solve the riddles of basic human existence - riddles of love, of childhood's lost and found, of relationships and of our day to day trials.His characters vary from a gangster who chooses love over looting, a couple trying to steal their first kiss in a right-wing nightmare, children playing one-tip one-hand cricket to an early jobber trying to rise above his mundane job to an old man contemplating the purpose of life after getting replaced by technology.Nikhil's characters are immensely relatable and his stories are his voice speaking out your own stories. This book reminds you of the smell of summer sunshine hitting garden leaves and takes you to back to a kinder gentler and simpler time.

    The novel is an attempt to address the complications of religion through Tulsidas while portraying him as a person who was afflicted with all the virtues and vices known to human beings. How Tulsidas finds Shri Ram -- is a question that the author answers in a fashion that can only be termed as brilliant for lack of better word. The best thing about the work is that it doesn't attempt to glorify any God or deity, but simple tries to go into the mind of the devotee -- Tulsidas in this case.

    . . .The yellow glowed beautifully in the morning light. There was something different about this particular yellow. This one entered through his eyes, dissolved in his blood, and went straight to his heart.” Uday Prakash’s novel of contemporary India is a tender love story—university student Rahul is swept away by a “sweet fever” of love for Anjali, the enchanting girl with the golden parasol. But Prakash’s tale is set in a world where the 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system still holds sway and social realities doom the chances of a non-Brahmin boy who loves a Brahmin girl. The Girl with the Golden Parasol is the first English translation of Prakash’s work to be published in the United States. His audacious novel captures the profound contradictions of India today, where the forces aligned against change outweigh even the power of love.

    The stories in this book have their roots in the Indian culture but express universal emotions that are experienced across the boundaries of regions, caste, and creed. Varied emotions of love, heartbreak, aloofness, anxiety, fear, and longing are expressed in this book.There is one story in which movie star Dilip Kumar breaks the heart of a young girl. There is another where a man pushes off another from a moving train. Raavi Paar also tells the story of a Muslim man whose wish is to be cremated after death and not be buried. There is also a story about a married woman who realises that the only reason for her husband to marry her was to use her as cheap labour.The title of this book is an incident from the author’s own life. During the India-Pakistan partition, the author was mistakenly claimed as their own child by another family. Raavi Paar consists of stories which will touch the reader’s hearts due to the simplicity and intricacy of emotions portrayed by the author.

    The simple and lively stories compel you to take a look back at your own life, and remember when you put these incidences at the back of your mind. Its not just a collection of stories and a true incident, but also a reflection of what every one of us has seen sometime or the other, in our lives. The characters come alive, time and again as people we may have met, or as a persona of our own self.Not too many works in recent years have managed to capture the nuances of ordinary, daily lives as effortlessly and fluently as Terms and Conditions Apply has done. A wonderful assortment of 13 short stories and a true incident, Whether it is highs and lows of a relationship, chaos and bedlam of school life, petty or harmless office gossips, or the buzz of a salon; all stories are strongly steeped in reality and yet they take a superb flight of fancy in the hands of a master craftsman. Rich in imagination, broad in its scope and elegant in its style, Terms and Conditions Apply is arguably one of the best debut works in recent Hindi literature.

    His once prosperous landowning family has slipped low down the class ladder. Arif ’s sole ambition in life is to crack the civil service examination and become an IAS officer. He believes this will restore the family’s fortunes and works hard at his studies. Until his first glimpse of Sumitra, a voluptuous long-haired beauty. Married, Hindu and several years older than him, she is wrong for him in every way. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will consume his life.‘Reading Patna Blues is like pedalling your way through a littleknown India. It is certain to fill you with inexplicably candid and absolutely stunning tales. Patna Blues marks an impressive debut and brings us an important voice.’ —Anees Salim‘I am familiar not only with the places where this novel is set, the cramped rooms, the names of shops, or the streets, but, it seems to me, even the people, their little joys, their struggles, their often irrational hopes and desires, their guilt, and their beauty. Part literary novel, part-pulp fiction, Patna Blues is a report from a rarely seen world in Indian writing in English, the contemporary lives of provincial Muslims.’ —Amitava Kumar

    

    The hostage-takers threaten to shoot pilgrims every day, unless the incumbent Government accedes to their demands. With the popular Hindu festival of Diwali just around the corner and elections less than six months away, the Government at the center is under immense pressure to act. What will the Government do? The army? The intelligence agencies? The common man? No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Who are these men? Is there a larger plot? Faced with such unprecedented events, will the country descend into unimaginable anarchy or will it rise above the issues of collective apathy and greed that have plagued it since Independence?

    Set in a middle-class housing colony, this is the story of stay-at-home mum Monalisa, who cannot clean the kitchen counter enough times; Meera, who is bullied constantly by her traditional mother-in-law; college-going Abeer, who isnt sure how to impress the glamorous Mandy; academic Aparajita, who has no takers on the marriage mart; philosopher Ananda, whom no one takes seriously; and Treeza, a former school secretary now sunk in gloom. Into their midst arrives Oxford-returned Sandhya: half hippie, half saadhvi, full spiritual guru. Under her aegis is formed The Weight Loss Club, throwing the lives of our heroes and heroines into utter and delightful disarray. But while chemistry brews and equations change, one question remains: who is Brahmacharini Sandhya, and why on earth has she moved into Nancy Housing Cooperative?

    The book starts during the reign of Emperor Ashoka and ends in 1947, when India gains independence.The core of The Tenth Unknown revolves around a race between different individuals to acquire a set of nine books. The books are some of the world’s best kept secrets, and it is believed that the person who gets the entire set will gain information that can lead to unlimited power and wealth.The books mentioned in this novel have been protected down the ages by a secret society of men appointed by Emperor Ashoka. They are scattered around the world and hidden, and the clues about their location are hidden in the ruins of the ancient Nalanda University.The attempts to trace the books take on a new pace when the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler manages to lay his hands on one of the books. This causes panic across the world. The British are worried at the prospect of empowering the dictator with unlimited wealth and power.The task of tracing the remaining books and ensuring their safety falls on Prithvi Rathore, who is more English than Indian. Prithvi is quite happy with his comfortable existence and his regular game of cricket. However, his grandfather, who was a member of the secret society formed to protect the books, insists that it is Prithvi’s duty to trace the remaining books and keep them safe. A reluctant Prithvi agrees to take up the task. His main opponent in this task is Joseph Heidler, a rather untypical Nazi officer who has been ordered by Adolf Hitler to get the remaining books.As the two men try to fulfill their assigned tasks, the race becomes intensely action packed. Will the good men win over the bad? Who will be able to decrypt the clues hidden amidst the broken ruins of Nalanda?

    When he first arrives in Aayakudi to investigate a curious tip about a ghost, the place seems like an ordinary, traditional farming village. Soon, though, Rajendran finds himself entangled in a head-spinning mystery involving ancient treasure, spirit possession, and a series of grisly killings. There's also the beautiful, troubled daughter of the village panchayat president... and the notorious evil sorcerer who wants her dead. Indra Soundar Rajan, one of the stalwarts of the Tamil pulp fiction scene, has been writing his unique brand of supernatural mystery thrillers for over 30 years. He's also known for his television screenplays, such as the long-running superhit serial Marmadesam (Land of Mystery). He lives in Madurai.

    Much to the anxiety of her parents – the spirited Biji and the doting Baba – Amara leads an unremarkable life. That is, until she marries Harvard-educated millionaire, Prashant Roy. However, this fairy-tale isn’t meant to last, and even as Amara’s marriage collapses, she finds herself returning to the land of her birth, to the small city of Shimla. Here, in a borough grappling with questions of modernity, Amara is caught in a tug-of-war between old beliefs and new ones, between parents who favour obedience and new friends who encourage independent thought. With powerful insights, One and a Half Wife traces the coming-of-age of multiple characters, while re-defining family, relationships and love in contemporary India.

    It's an earnest attempt to celebrate youth, their life, aspirations, confusions and their love stories..The novel is set in Jaipur. The plot of the story revolves around two central characters- Anurag and Neha. Anurag narrates the story. He is a middle class boy who comes to Jaipur to fulfill his father's dream (Mere Bete Ka Bhi Bada Package Hoga). He meets Neha. A series of exciting incidents and meetings later, Anurag and Neha to realize they are becoming more than just friends. But as fate would have it, the blooming love story sees a twist in tale when Anurag meets Komal, a family friend's daughter.Meanwhile, Prateek and Bhupi who are roommates with Anurag are facing an emotional turmoil in their personal lives. This affects Anurag's love life. How will Anurag get out of it? Will he be able to resolve his friends' problems? Whom will he say, I love you? Will he fulfill his father's dream? In a nutshell, Kulfi and Cappuccino" is definitely readable. You will love to keep it for a second read too.

    But what went unreported in the media was the nuclear fallout that had lasting impact on the inhabitants of Pokhran, especially Chaitanya.It quickly becomes clear that the conspiracy surrounding this radioactive fallout runs pretty deep in the establishment. Those who have had a hand in covering it up are willing to go to great lengths to ensure that the secrets stay buried.Chaitanya sets on a journey to expose the truth. With Zara by his side, he is sure to bring justice to his people. But when fate snatches Zara away from him, he is consumed by revenge. Undeterred by threats, he embarks on a mission that takes him from the deserts of Pokhran to those of Syria, and into the halls of MIT.A heady page turner, at its very core, Pokhran is an exceptional journey of revenge, courage, love and the unbeatable human spirit.

    You will find yourself in the middle of a torrid liaison in The Affair , revel in the euphoria of budding romance in Just One Glance and discover what it means to let go of your loved one in The Impasse .Love can also be brutal and unconventional as The Unseen Boundaries of Love and Something about Karen will show you. But most of all, as Death of a Widower and Siddharth show, you will see that love is all about hope and taking the leap of faith.Selected from a nationwide Romance Contest conducted by Rupa Publications, this heart-warming collection of stories urges you to believe that love is eternal...and forever.