Chokher Bali


Rabindranath Tagore - 1903
    First published as a serial, a novel on love, family and sexuality in Bengal society.

Gora


Rabindranath TagoreJanko Moder - 1910
    The story reflects the social, political and religious scene in Bengal at the turn of the century. The forces that were operating in Bengal at that time were one of the intense nationalism and revival of ancient spiritual values and also that of liberal western thought. What makes Gora a great prose epic is not only its social content but also its brilliant story of self-searching, of resolution, of conflicts and of self discovery.

Legal Fiction


Chandan Pandey - 2021
    Often used to get around the provisions of constitutions and legal codes.A late-night phone call from his ex-girlfriend Anasuya forces writer Arjun Kumar to leave his wife and home in Delhi and travel to the mofussil town of Noma on the UP-Bihar border. The reason — Anasuya's husband, Rafique Neel, a college professor and theatre director, has mysteriously disappeared.Soon after he arrives, Arjun realizes that things are not as they seem: the police are refusing to register a missing-persons case, Rafique's student Janaki has also disappeared, and the locals are determined to turn it into a case of 'love jihad'. And when Arjun begins to dig deeper, what he finds endangers him and everyone around him.Inspired by true events from today's India, Legal Fiction is a brilliant existential thriller and a chilling parable of our times.

ज़िन्दगी आइस पाइस [Zindagi Aais Pais]


Nikhil Sachan - 2015
    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.

Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust


Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar - 1963
    Yayati was a great scholar and one of the noblest rulers of olden times. He followed the shastras and was devoted to the welfare of his subjects. Even the King of Gods, Indra, held him in high esteem. Married to seductively beautiful Devyani, in love with her maid Sharmishtha, and father of five sons from two women, yet Yayati unabashedly declares, My lust for pleasure is unsatisfied. His quest for the carnal continued, sparing not even his youngest son, and exchanging his old age for his son s youth.

One Part Woman


Perumal Murugan - 2010
    Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on the chariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation. But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex.

गोदान [Godaan]


Munshi Premchand - 1936
    Economic and social conflict in a north Indian village are brilliantly captured in the story of Hori, a poor farmer and his family’s struggle for survival and self-respect. Hori does everything he can to fulfill his life’s desire: to own a cow, the peasant’s measure of wealth and well-being. Like many Hindus of his time, he believes that making the gift of a cow to a Brahman before he dies will help him achieve salvation. An engaging introduction to India before Independence, Godaan is at once village ethnography, moving human document and insightful colonial history.

The Vendor of Sweets


R.K. Narayan - 1967
    A widower of firm Gandhian principles, Jagan nonetheless harbours a warm and embarrassed affection for his wastrel son Mali. Yet even Jagan's patience begins to fray when Mali descends on the sleepy city of Malgudi full of modern notions, with a new half-American wife and a grand plan for selling novel-writing machines. From different generations and different cultures, father and son are forced to confront each other, and are taken by surprise . . .

ആരാച്ചാര്‍


K.R. Meera - 2012
    Set in Bengal, it tells the story of a family of executioners with a long lineage, beginning in the fourth century BC. The protagonist of the novel, Chetna, is a strong and tenacious woman who struggles to inherit this profession.According to noted literary critic M. Leelavathy, Aarachaar is one of the best literary works produced in Malayalam and follows the legacy of O. V. Vijayan's classic work Khasakkinte Itihasam. The novel received the 2013 Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. It was also awarded the prestigious Odakkuzhal Award in 2013 and Vayalar Award in 2014.

ಆವರಣ [Aavarana]


S.L. Bhyrappa - 2007
    Bhyrappa. Aavarana means enveloping or covering something. This novel deals with the historical period in Indian history when the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb ruled most part of India. Aavarana was sold out even before its release in February 2007. The novel went on to create a record in the Indian literary world by witnessing 10 reprints within five months of its release. S.L.Bhyrappa says that 'Aavarana' is the result of his search for truth about history.

Ghachar Ghochar


Vivek Shanbhag - 2013
    As they move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a larger house on the other side of Bangalore, and try to adjust to a new way of life, the family dynamic begins to shift. Allegiances realign; marriages are arranged and begin to falter; and conflict brews ominously in the background. Things become “ghachar ghochar”—a nonsense phrase uttered by one meaning something tangled beyond repair, a knot that can't be untied. Elegantly written and punctuated by moments of unexpected warmth and humor, Ghachar Ghochar is a quietly enthralling, deeply unsettling novel about the shifting meanings—and consequences—of financial gain in contemporary India.

The Girl with the Golden Parasol


Uday Prakash - 2008
    . . .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.

Ancient Promises


Jaishree Misra - 1999
    Years later, she is miserable, having been gradually shut out by the coldness of her husband’s family and his indifference to her and her daughter’s needs.Finally she flees to England to escape the loveless union—but at what price to herself and those she loves? The moving story of one woman’s painful journey of self-discovery, Ancient Promises is about a marriage, a divorce, and motherhood. It is about why we love and lose, sometimes seeming to have little control over our destinies.About the AuthorJaishree Misra is the best-selling author of Ancient Promises, Accidents Like Love and Marriage and Afterwards. She lives in the United Kingdom.

Em and The Big Hoom


Jerry Pinto - 2012
    Between Em, the mother, driven frequently to hospital after her failed suicide attempts, and The Big Hoom, the father, trying to hold things together as best he could, they tried to be a family.

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas


Arun Joshi - 1971
    A thought provoking novel, in which the normal and the abnormal, the ordinary and the extraordinary, illusion and reality, resignation and desire rub shoulders.