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BITING THE BULLET: Memoirs of a Police Officer


Ajai Raj Sharma - 2019
    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.

A Year of Wednesdays


Sonia Bahl - 2019
    Two strangers, seat 7A and seat 7B, who have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. Except they are both hoping the seat next to theirs remains empty. It doesn't. Mid-flight turbulence and infant incontinence forces them to interact—the cool wall Street guy and the mom-with-the-drool-stained-sweater-and-ordinary-aspirations. Blistering wit, opposing views, and some unexpectedly poignant admissions keep them addictive engaged and hopelessly sleep deprived through the fifteen-hour journey. Touch down... And they leave the cabin without a backward Glance, jumping right back into their dramatically different lives. Never to meet again. But somehow they continue to travel together—interlocked forever through an inexplicable connectedness. Can one meeting change everything forever? The Japanese have a term for it: ichi-go ichi-e. One time, one encounter, lasts a lifetime.About the AuthorBorn and raised in Kolkata, Sonia has lived and worked in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, Miami, Brussels, Johannesburg, and Singapore. With home being everywhere and nowhere, her belief in the power of the moment became a religion. An affirmation that unexpected and undeniable human connections are everything. Meanwhile, on the work front, she spent a huge chunk of her life, her days, and sleepless nights, in advertising—writing ads for all things from coffee and cars to condoms and candy—while dreaming of morphing 30-second commercials to full-length feature films. Not surprisingly, she threw caution, and her full-time job as creative director, to the winds and embarked on a riveting rejection-filled screenwriting journey in the US. Finally her day job entails writing movies! In a recent, delightful plot twist, her debut novel, The Spectacular Miss, was optioned by a leading Bollywood studio and she was commissioned to write the screenplay. Sonia writes and re-writes in Singapore where she lives with her menagerie: gorgeous itinerant daughter, honorary proofreader husband, and her made-for-the-movies golden retriever, Ari Gold.

The Jeera Packer


Prashant Yadav - 2016
    One shot, one man. Right man, wrong man. But that was thirty years ago. I shot people through their heads then. I pack jeera in a basement now.This is me and here is my story.He was the best sharpshooter in the state. A true bullet artist. But he gave it all up to lead a happy, normal, stable life . . . with his loving wife and dear son. And that proved to be his undoing. Resonant and deeply affecting, The Jeera Packer is the gripping tale of a man who after three decades of playing the happy family man returns to his profession of old for one final work—to shoot the chief minister.Convinced that this is his raison d'etre, will he manage to pull off this one last act, as his concluding hat tip to the man he could have been? Will he be able to brush away the jeera dust and rediscover himself? Or has the middle-aged family man already throttled the sharpshooter in him?

Manhattan Mango


Madhuri Iyer - 2014
    What happens when three ambitious, high-achieving, 20-something Mumbaikars become New Yorkers?A. Madness.Zipping through life’s ups and downs like a high-speed elevator during rush hour, buddies Shri, Shanks, and Neel hold on to each other, and their sanity, with a bro-hood bonding that chipkos them together, fevicol se.Neel’s the driven hedge fund guy, with a weakness for scotch and women. Tam Brahm Shanks, a techie, falls for the "wrong” girl. Good Son Shri, a banker, holds a secret he means to take to his grave. Their intertwined lives buzz with high-voltage drama — explosive secrets, super-charged romances, and a-fuse-a-minute meltdowns.There’s alcohol-fueled passion, Devdas style. Inter-racial hook-ups. Even a fake affair, because money can’t buy the real thing. When their skyscraper-sized dreams are tested, this “desified” saga of friends in Manhattan is like the city’s rapid transit express subway line. You won’t want any stops in between.

A Newlywed’s Adventures in Married Land


Shweta Ganesh Kumar - 2013
    After being a hard-as-nails reporter who covered crime stories of the goriest kind, Mythili is now just a ‘dependent’. On top of that, unemployment, encounters with expat-wives and culture shock leave her feeling like she has fallen down a rabbit hole. Will their love survive, or will she become just another unhappily married expatriate wife?Will this real life Alice ever embrace her Wonderland?

The Panipuri Crimes


S.B. Akshobhya - 2021
    His plan is to put the humble cane-panipuri vendor, found in every other street in a metropolitan city, on a digital platform.As they gear up to launch an app to sell panipuri, the cloud of risk looms large. All five entrepreneurs who earlier ventured into the business had died in road accidents. But all that is overlooked and forgotten in the excitement of the team reaching the verge of a VC funding.Is the death of all five entrepreneurs a coincidence? Can Sagar and his team overcome the odds? Why are the ordinary vendors dying one after another like a pack of cards?The Panipuri Crimes is a thrilling story weaving together the world of entrepreneurship and struggle, love and other demons, and the murky world of crime.

The Prince of Patliputra


Shreyas Bhave - 2015
    Almost five decades ago, his father had laid the foundations of this vast Samrajya guided by the famed Guru Arya Chanakya. But now, the wealth and glory of the past has subsided...As the Samrat’s health continues to decline due to an unknown illness, problems are arising all over his realm. There is infighting and rebellion. No clear successor to him is present. Ninety nine of his sons stand in line waiting for his throne...Bharathvarsha needs a Chandragupta once again. And it needs a Chanakya too. Can the young Prince Asoka, who is the least favorite son of the Samrat, fill in the boots of his grandfather? Can Radhagupta, a mere Councilor of the Court be what Chanakya was to all the Aryas? Begin a new adventure with the first book of the Asoka trilogy as you read to find the answer to one great question-'That who shall be the next Samrat of this holy land of the Aryas?'

Under the Coconut Tree


Marissa De Luna - 2015
    Detective Arthur Chupplejeep and Police Officer Pankaj are called to investigate. From their experience this should be a straightforward case, but in a small village like Utol, everybody has something to hide. Suspects soon start coming out of the woodwork. Bala, the pau wallah, has a history with the deceased that he has taken great care to conceal. Then there is Sandeep Shah’s lover and her jealous partner. Even the victim’s family seem to have a good enough motive to kill. To top it all, the telephone number of local moneylender, Sanjog Viraj, is found tucked under the victim’s bed. He looks like a key suspect, but everybody knows Sanjog is more like a Pomfret than a shark. Detective Chupplejeep and Pankaj have their work cut out, sifting through village life, rumour and gossip to get to the truth. But along with solving the case, Detective Chupplejeep has his own problems. His girlfriend, Christabel, is growing impatient with his failure to put a ring on her finger and with his fortieth birthday fast approaching and a recent black mark against his name from the Inspector General of Police, Chupplejeep is having doubts about his professional competence. His dream of being Goa’s answer to Poirot is far from becoming a reality. As the mystery of the body deepens, and the pressures at home begin to weigh on the Detective’s mind, will Chupplejeep be able to solve the case and return peace to the sleepy village of Utol once again?

I Do! Do I?


Ruchita Misra - 2014
    Time to stop doing silly things and start living happily ever after, right? Well, then maybe someone should tell Kasturi that.This irrepressibly irreverent and not-quite-beaming bride-to-be fumbles through a messy engagement and in a moment of indecision, steps across a line that she should never have been near. To make things worse, her best friends are now nauseatingly mushy star-crossed lovers, her future mother-in-law thinks the kitchen-phobic Kasturi is a fabulous cook, her colleague Padma hates her for no reason, her boss wants medical intervention for her imaginary deafness and her mother has become a cyber-celebrity. This was not the way things were meant to go.Smart, hilarious and utterly unpredictable, I do! do I? will have you at the edge of your seat-unless youve already fallen off it laughing.

The Seal of Surya


Amritanshu Pandey - 2014
    The Solar tribes are without a ruler, and the return to Aryavarta has resulted in a confederation where hitherto there was a united clan-hood. Rakshasas, Gandharvas and Yakshas threaten the nascent cities of Aryavarta, and if their rise is not checked the Solar tribes may lose all they have gained.And thus rises Ikshvaku, the son of Manu and descendant of Surya. He forms Aryavarta’s first Kingdom and unites the Solar strength against the Anaryas- Rakshasas, Gandharvas and Yakshas.But the Seal of Surya is still missing, and Ikshvaku will need to find it to put his claim and authority beyond all doubt. This is the tale of Aryavarta’s first dynasty, the Suryavansha, and its first King- Ikshvaku Manava.

The Best Couple Ever


Novoneel Chakraborty - 2018
    If yes, then congrats! You are their next target.

Mom Says No Girlfriend


Subhasis Das - 2010
    Unhappy with her constant interference in his life, Danny’s music classes become his only solace and as the years go by, make him realize that music is his true calling.There’s just one glitch: his parents have already planned his entire life for him, and it involves science and engineering. Music has no place in it. Now sixteen, and a rebel, Sam joins a new school far away from home and out of his mother’s reach. Life takes a hedonistic turn for him, with parties, alcohol, love and sex.A coming-of-age novel, Mom Says No Girlfriend is the heart-warming story of a boy trying to find his place in the world.

Ghalib Danger


Neeraj Pandey - 2013
    What seems like a good deed however has a cruel payback andin a single moment, Kamran loses everything dear to him. This is whenMirza, in gratitude, takes Kamran under his wing and the young man getsdrawn into the mafia boss’s dangerous world of cops and rival gangsters,eventually taking over from him.Kamran also inherits Mirza’s philosophy that all of life’s problems can besolved through Ghalib¹s poetry.Soon, the innocent taxi driver has cops, criminals and even cabinetministers at his beck and call.And he has a new name—Ghalib Danger.

Never Say Goodbye


Rajiv Seth - 2012
    It is a story of an extra-marital affair and how it is looked at from a woman’s and a man’s perspective. It is a story of how the field of genetics can affect a person’s thoughts and approaches to ethics in science.The characters in the book are simple at times, complex at the other, but easy to relate with. The story is pacy and delivers unexpected twists at the most unexpected times. Anjali, is a young doctor, who is driven by an urge to do much more than just medicine. An infatuation leads to her marrying a businessman, and into a joint family, where studies and education take second place. Even her husband has a very different outlook to life. They are, literally, moving on different paths in life, and Anjali realises this only when she meets Aakash who, too, is a doctor. From being her mentor, Aakash gradually becomes her soul mate and their relationship reaches a flashpoint as they fight an outbreak of plague in a tiny village in north India. Anjali goes headlong into the relationship, not caring about the consequences but Aakash preaches to her about the strengths of the institution of marriage in India and how extra-marital affairs are, rightly or wrongly, frowned upon in India. Their approaches to the relationship reverse when Anjali gets pregnant with his child. Anjali goes on to study human genetics at an institution in the UK. At the end of the programme, she is entrusted with the task of setting up a laboratory in Shillong to research on therapeutic cloning. The institution is keen on the laboratory being located in a remote place where the laws on cloning research are less stringent than in the UK. Over a few years, without Anjali realising it, the laboratory moves towards successful research into techniques for human cloning. Anjali thinks this is unethical and resists pressure to actually clone a human being.What follows is an emotion-arousing sequence of events. At times you will just love Anjali, and at times you will hate her for the way she relates to people. But that regardless, you will never want to press the pause button until you finish the roller-coaster ride which the author takes you through.

Maya: Lifting the Veil


Amar B. Singh - 2020
    The impossible task of knowing God's mind...