Book picks similar to
Gender and Caste by Anupama Rao


gender-feminism
india
malayalee-feminist-writing
purple-pencil-project

वयं रक्षामः [Vayam Rakshamah]


Acharya Chatursen - 1997
    It relates the political development of that age with current geography in a very interesting way. It also brings out a new perspective on Ravana, his rise and his fall.

The Village Bride of Beverly Hills


Kavita Daswani - 2004
    Playing the traditional daughter- in-law role, she’s expected to clean, cook, and—because she doesn’t immediately get pregnant—find a job as well! But the job, at a glossy Hollywood gossip magazine, isn’t at all what Priya’s in-laws had in mind for a traditional Indian wife. She soon finds herself with a secret life that she must hide from her disapproving new family. All the while, she is growing into a marriage with a man whose loyalty is decidedly torn between his parents and his bride. This is hardly surprising, given that he met his wife only a week before their wedding. The question is, can this fragile new love survive the pull between tradition and ambition?

Once Upon A Curfew


Srishti Chaudhary - 2019
    Indu has inherited a flat from her grandmother and wants to turn it into a library for women. Her parents think this will keep her suitably occupied till she marries her fiancé, Rajat, who's away studying in London.But then she meets Rana, a young lawyer with sparkling wit and a heart of gold. He helps set up the library and their days light up with playful banter and the many Rajesh Khanna movies they watch together.When the Emergency is declared, Indu's life turns upside down. Rana finds himself in trouble, while Rajat decides it's time to visit India and settle down. As the Emergency pervades their lives, Indu must decide not only who but what kind of life she will choose.

A Good Indian Wife


Anne Cherian - 2008
    So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grand­father, he is sure he’ll be able to resist his family’s pleas that he marry a “good” Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel’s family’s village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there’s the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.

Despite the State: Why India Lets Its People Down and How They Cope


M. Rajshekhar - 2021
    This is a tale of India’s states, of why they build schools but do not staff them with teachers; favour a handful of companies so much that others slip into losses; wage water wars with their neighbours while allowing rampant sand mining and groundwater extraction; harness citizens’ right to vote but brutally crack down on their right to dissent. Reporting from six states over thirty-three months, award-winning investigative journalist M. Rajshekhar delivers a necessary account of a deep crisis that has gone largely unexamined.

Tiger Hills


Sarita Mandanna - 2010
    Spirited and strong-willed, she befriends the shy Devanna, a young boy whose mother has died in tragic circumstances. Together they grow up amidst the luscious jungles, rolling hills, and coffee plantations of Coorg in Southern India; cocooned by an extended family whose roots to this beautiful land can be traced for centuries. Their futures seem inevitably linked, but everything changes when, one night, they attend a "tiger wedding." It is there that Devi gets her first glimpse of Machu, the celebrated tiger killer and a hunter of great repute. Although she is still a child and Machu is a man, Devi vows to marry him one day. It is this love that will gradually drive a wedge between Devi and Devanna, sowing the seed of a devastating tragedy that will change the fate of all three --- an event that has unforeseen and far-reaching consequences for generations to come.Told in rich, lyrical prose and set against the background of a changing society, TIGER HILLS is a sweeping saga about one woman's determination to live life on her own terms --- and a riveting novel about the choices we make in the name of family, nation, and love.

The Great War of Hind (The Legend of Ramm #1)


Vaibhav Anand - 2014
    All that there was then, was earth… There are raconteurs and mischief-mongers in our ranks and I have no doubt they shall pervert the truth with their self-serving versions. The events of history – this history of our land – shall thus inevitably have many versions, doubtless. But, I was there with General Ramm, I fought by his side…”-Sanjaay, official chronicler of General RammAround 12000 B.C., Hindustan (or Hind) as we know it today, comprised five kingdoms of man, sandwiched between Parbat – the kingdom of the Gods in the north, and Lunka – the kingdom of the demons in the south. The ‘Legend of Ramm’ unravels the story of the military general called Ramm in the kingdom of Ayodh and how his actions came to define our world as we know it today.

The Guardian Angels


Rohit Gore - 2012
    . . he is the son of a billionaire, she is the daughter of a socialist.. . . he is quiet and unassuming, she is a firebrand and spirited.However, the unexplained phenomena ties them forever – whenever they are in peril, they are each other’s only saviors.Over the following two decades Adi and Radha live through hope and despair, joy and sadness, and try to decipher their relationship. As the truth of their bond is revealed, they must confront the true nature of love, and ultimately, their destinies.

How the BJP Wins: Inside India s Greatest Election Machine


Prashant Jha - 2017
    

The Book Of Gold Leaves


Mirza Waheed - 2014
    In an ancient house in the city of Srinagar, Faiz paints exquisite papier mache pencil boxes for tourists. Evening is beginning to slip into night when he sets off for the shrine. There he finds the woman with the long black hair. Roohi begs for the boy of her dreams to come and take her away. She wants a love story, an age-old tale of love, war, temptation, duty and choice.

The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib: Selected Poems


Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib - 1998
    In The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib: Selected Poems of Ghalib, poet Robert Bly and Urdu scholar Sunil Dutta collaborate to bring the delicacy and intensity of Ghalib's poetry to readers of English. This collection of thirty ghazals by Ghalib also serves as an introduction to the ghazal, the elegant and amazing poetic form revered for centuries in the Muslim world.

Where the River Parts


Radhika Swarup - 2016
    It was nothing. These things happened. ‘But these things haven’t happened before. It’s August 1947, the night before India’s independence. It is also the night before Pakistan’s creation and the brutal Partition of the two countries.Asha, a Hindu in a newly Muslim land, must flee to safety. She carries with her a secret she has kept even from Firoze, her Muslim lover, but Firoze must remain in Pakistan, and increasing tensions between the two countries mean the couple can never reunite.Fifty years later in New York, Asha’s Indian granddaughter falls in love with a Pakistani, and Asha and Firoze, meeting again at last, are faced with one more – final – choice.Spanning continents and generations, Where the River Parts is an epic tale of love, loss and longing.Advance Praise for Where the River Parts:‘A perceptive story of love swept aside by history, packed with insight, compassion and piercing detail.’-Isabelle Grey, Author of Good Girls Don’t Die‘A heartbreaking story ... on a chapter of South Asian history that has often been deemed too painful to be explored fully.’-Nayomi Munaweera, Author of Island of 1000 Mirrors

The Guide


R.K. Narayan - 1958
    Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju's newfound sanctity to the test. Narayan's most celebrated novel, The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country's highest literary honor.

Small Remedies


Shashi Deshpande - 2000
    Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay.Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela's niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai's home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son, Aditya, Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, seeks to find a way out of her own grief.

Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag


Rohinton Mistry - 1987
    Its ceilings need plastering and some of the toilets leak appallingly, but its residents are far from desperate, though sometimes contentious and unforgiving. In these witty, poignant stories, Mistry charts the intersecting lives of Firozsha Baag, yielding a delightful collective portrait of a middle-class Indian community poised between the old ways and the new.