Peanut Butter and Naan: Stories of an American Mom in the Far East
Jennifer Hillman-Magnuson - 2014
But when her husband was offered a position in India, she saw it for what it was: the perfect opportunity for her family to unplug from their over-scheduled and pampered lives in Nashville and gain some much-needed perspective. What she didn t realize was how much their time in India would transform her as well. A combination of Eat, Pray, Love and Modern Family, with a dash of Chelsea Handler thrown in for good measure, Peanut Butter and Naan is Magnuson s hilarious look at the chaos of parenting against a backdrop of malaria, extreme poverty, and no conveniences of any kind and her story of rediscovering herself and revitalizing her connection with those she loves the most. In India, after years of parenting under a cloud of anxiety, Magnuson found a renewed sense of adventure and fearlessness (a discovery that was totally worth the many months of hiding anti-malarial medication in her kids morning oatmeal), and started to become the mother she d always hoped to be. Hers is a story about motherhood that will not only make you laugh and nod with recognition it will inspire you to fall in love with your own family all over again."
A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes
Sam Miller - 2014
Sam Miller investigates how the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Europeans and Americans - everyone really, except for Indians themselves - came to imagine India. His account of the engagement between foreigners and India spans the centuries from Alexander the Great to Slumdog Millionaire. It features, among many others, Thomas the Apostle, the Chinese monk Xuanzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Vasco da Gama, Babur, Clive of India, several Victorian pornographers, Mark Twain, EM Forster, Allen Ginsberg, the Beatles and Steve Jobs. Interspersed between these tales is the story of Sam Miller's own 25-year-long love affair with India. The result is a spellbinding, 2500-year-long journey through Indian history, culture and society, in the company of an author who informs, educates and entertains in equal measure, as he travels in the footsteps of foreign chroniclers, exposes some of their fabulous fantasies and overturns longheld stereotypes about race, identity and migration. A tour de force that is at once scholarly and thought-provoking, delightfully eccentric and laugh-out-loud funny, this book is destined to become a much-loved classic.
NDTV Frauds V2.0 - The Real Culprit: A completely revamped version that shows the extent to which NDTV and a Cabal will stoop to hide a saga of Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Stock Manipulation.
Sree Iyer - 2018
In this revamped version, as NDTV's transgressions have been ruled on in the courts, the reader gets a ringside view of what happens when Business colludes with Bureaucrats and Bent Politicians. How a corrupt cabal manages to keep delaying the inevitable by tying up the cases in courts. Fake narratives and honey traps to coerce and blackmail. NDTV and the owner (who is revealed in the book) have resorted to every means foul to deny the truth from coming out. A compelling read for everyone who wants to know how the system has been thoroughly corrupted and compromised in India.
My Name is Radha: The Essential Manto
Saadat Hasan Manto - 2015
But neither Partition nor prostitution gave birth to the genius of Saadat Hasan Manto. They only furnished him with an occasion to reveal the truth of the human condition.My Name Is Radha is a path-breaking selection of stories which delves deep into Manto’s creative world. In this singular collection, the focus rests on Manto the writer. It does not draft him into being Manto the commentator. Muhammad Umar Memon’s inspired choice of Manto’s best-known stories, along with those less talked about, and his precise and elegant translation showcase an astonishing writer being true to his calling.
Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality
Sudhir Kakar - 1990
His groundbreaking work explores India's sexual fantasies and ideals, the "unlit stage of desire where so much of our inner theater takes place."Kakar's sources are primarily textual, celebrating the primacy of the story in Indian life. He practices a cultural psychology that distills the psyches of individuals from the literary products and social institutions of Indian culture. These include examples of lurid contemporary Hindi novels; folktales; Sanskrit, Tamil, and Hindi proverbs; hits of the Indian cinema; Gandhi's autobiography; interviews with women from the slums of Delhi; and case studies from his own psychoanalytic practice. His attentive readings of these varied narratives from a vivid portrait of sexual fantasies and realities, reflecting the universality of sexuality as well as cultural nuances specific to India.Moving from genre to genre, Kakar offers a brilliant reading of verses from the Laws of Manu, the original source of Hindu religious laws, to uncover their psychological foundations—male terror of the female sexual appetite that shields itself by idealizing women's maternal role. Kakar also examines the psychosexual history of Gandhi at length, though his near-lifelong celibacy makes him an atypical subject. Gandhi's story is universal, Kakar says, because "we all wage war on our wants."In India's lore and tradition, complex symbols abound—snakes that take the shape of sensual women or handsome men, celibates sleep with naked women, gods rape their daughters, and a goddess fries a king in oil. With the analyst's "third ear," Kakar listens, decodes, and translates the psychological longings that find expression in Indian sexual relations.
Leaving Yuba City: Poems
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - 1997
(Yuba City Poems).Groups of interlinked poems divided into six sections are peopled by many of the same characters and explore varying themes. Here, Divakaruni is particularly interested in how different art forms can influence and inspire each other. One section, entitled Indian Miniatures, is based on and named after a series of paintings by Francesco Clemente. Another, called Moving Pictures, is based on Indian films, including Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay" and Satyajit Ray's "Ghare Baire." Photographs by Raghubir Singh inspired the section entitled Rajasthani. The trials and tribulations of growing up and immigration are also considered here and, as with all of Divakaruni's writing, these poems deal with the experience of women and their struggle to find identities for themselves.This collection is touched with the same magic and universal appeal that excited readers of "Arranged Marriage." In "Leaving Yuba City," Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni proves once again her remarkable literary talents.
A Traveler's Guide to Belonging
Rachel Devenish Ford - 2015
Stunned, he finds himself alone with his newborn son in the mountains of North India and no idea of what it means to be a father, and begins a journey through India with his baby, seeking understanding for loss and life and the way the two intertwine. Set among the stunning landscapes, train tracks, and winding alleys of India, A Traveler’s Guide to Belonging is a story about fathers and sons, losing and finding love, and a traveler’s grand quest for meaning.
Closet of Lies
Samruddhi Chandak - 2019
“ Bogged down by the pressures of a daily hospital routine, 28-year-old cancer-stricken Riddhi's life suddenly picks up pace when she starts receiving mysterious letters from an anonymous sender, who means bloody business. Riddhi finds herself in the fast lane when a renowned top cop is found murdered as mentioned in one of the letters. It is only when CBI officer Kabir Rana gets involved in solving the case, does he realize there is more to Riddhi than meets the eye. When Kabir starts decoding secret clues that would lead him to the murderer, what he comes across shakes him to the core.
The Shaadi Brouhaha
Anjlee Shah - 2015
Launching a newbie into the Indian matrimonial scene is likeintroducing a new iPhone in an already saturated market – has to be sleek,overflowing with catchy features, and better than the already available versions.So when twenty-five-year-old Nitya Trivedi is forced into it by her ever soenthusiastic mother and pestering relatives, she hardly knows what she hasbargained for.In her journey to find her soul-mate (??!!), she becomes Dollarkumar’sPoundkumari, ends up fasting on party days to make peace with her horrorscope,attends hilarious ‘arranged’ meetings through various matchmakingportals and people – all under the nose of her extremely evil, but deliciouslydebonair boss Rudra Desai.With besties tying the knot and cousins ‘stealing’ prospective grooms…wonderhow Nitya’s mother will find the perfect match for her only daughter.But as always, love will find a way in the midst of The Shaadi Brouhaha..
Life After Life: A Guildford Four Memoir
Paddy Armstrong - 2017
The truth is, I've lived three very different lives: the one before prison; the one in prison; and my life since then. It has taken years to make sense of it all, but now I've found a voice to speak about it.Paddy Armstrong was one of four people falsely convicted of The Guildford Bombing in 1975. He spent fifteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit.Today, as a husband and father, life is wonderfully ordinary, but the memory of his ordeal lives on. Here, for the first time and with unflinching candour, he lays bare the experiences of those years and their aftermath.Life after Life is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forgiveness. It reminds us of the privilege of freedom, and how the balm of love, family and everyday life can restore us and mend the scars of even the most savage injustice.'This book captures the sweet soul of Paddy. Beautifully written. For lovers of freedom everywhere.' Jim Sheridan
Eden Gardens
Louise Brown - 2015
In a ramshackle house, streets away from the grand colonial mansions of the British, live Maisy, her Mam and their ayah, Pushpa.Whiskey-fuelled and poverty-stricken, Mam entertains officers in the night - a disgrace to British India. All hopes are on beautiful Maisy to restore their good fortune.But Maisy's more at home in the city's forbidden alleyways, eating bazaar food and speaking Bengali with Pushpa, than dancing in glittering ballrooms with potential husbands.Then one day Maisy's tutor falls ill. His son stands in. Poetic, handsome and ambitious for an independent India, Sunil Banerjee promises Maisy the world.So begins a love affair that will cast her future, for better and for worse. Just as the Second World War strikes and the empire begins to crumble...This is the other side of British India. A dizzying, scandalous, dangerous world, where race, class and gender divide and rule.
India's Greatest Speeches
Nitin Agarwal - 2014
Set to inspire, this book includes some of the most stirring and eloquent addresses by Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Mother Teresa, JRD Tata, Abdul Kalam, Nardendra Modi and other influential Indian leaders.This impelling selection of expressive moments of oratory would provide the reader a fresh perspective; evoke feelings of patriotism, inspiration and unbounded motivation. Nitin Aggarwal introduces each speech with relevant information, providing valuable insight.
The Idea of Justice
Amartya Sen - 2009
And in this book the distinguished scholar Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political thinking, has long left practical realities far behind.The transcendental theory of justice, the subject of Sen's analysis, flourished in the Enlightenment and has proponents among some of the most distinguished philosophers of our day; it is concerned with identifying perfectly just social arrangements, defining the nature of the perfectly just society. The approach Sen favors, on the other hand, focuses on the comparative judgments of what is "more" or "less" just, and on the comparative merits of the different societies that actually emerge from certain institutions and social interactions.At the heart of Sen's argument is a respect for reasoned differences in our understanding of what a "just society" really is. People of different persuasions--for example, utilitarians, economic egalitarians, labor right theorists, no--nonsense libertarians--might each reasonably see a clear and straightforward resolution to questions of justice; and yet, these clear and straightforward resolutions would be completely different. In light of this, Sen argues for a comparative perspective on justice that can guide us in the choice between alternatives that we inevitably face.
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children-The Satanic Verses
David Smale - 2002
As a novelist and icon, Rushdie has embraced both 'popular' and 'high' culture; reflecting this, the Guide brings together both academic criticism and journalism to investigate the passions and preoccupations of Rushdie's many critics, steering the reader through the inflamed debates and rhetoric surrounding this much admired but controversial author.