Book picks similar to
The Kaunteyas by Madhavi S. Mahadevan
mythology
fiction
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indian-fiction
The Brahmin
Ravi Shankar Etteth - 2018
Men of peace are spreading the message of the Buddha even as monks are being tortured in the dungeons of Pataliputra. In Magadha, all talk is about the impending war against Kalinga. While King Ashoka plots the movements of his ships and cavalry, Queen Asandhimitra broods over the growing unrest in the kingdom. There is only one man they can both trust to take them through this period of uncertainty and looming danger: the enigmatically named Brahmin, skilful spymaster and custodian of Magadha’s best-kept secrets. Lush with historical detail and unforgettable characters, The Brahmin is an intricately plotted novel that seeks to recreate a near-mythical period in India’s past.
CHACHA CHAUDHARY DIGEST 1: CHACHA CHAUDHARY
Pran Kumar Sharma - 2015
Thus CHACHA CHAUDHARY was born in 1971.Tall and robust SABU, who is an inhabitant of planet Jupiter, gave Chaudhary an ideal company. A combination of wisdom and strength was formed to tackle any difficult task. It is said that " Chacha Chaudhary's brain works faster than a computer". Though both fight the criminals and tricksters, each episode ends with a touch of humour. The duo perform in lighter vein. The CHAUDHARY family consists of his wife Bini, a fat sharp tongue woman, Sabu, Rocket - the dog and Dag- Dag, an old truck who is half human- half machine. Chacha Chaudhary is the most popular Indian comics. More than 10 million readers enjoy this series regularly in newspapers and comic books in ten languages. A T.V. serial based on the comics has crossed 500 episodes and still continue to be telecast on premier channel "Sahara ONE".
Jasmine Days
Benyamin - 2014
She thrives in her job as a radio jockey and at home she is the darling of the family. But her happy world starts to fall apart when revolution blooms in the country. As the people's agitation gathers strength, Sameera finds herself and her family embroiled in the politics of their adopted land. She is forced to choose between family and friends, loyalty and love, life and death.Jasmine Days is the heart-rending story of a young woman in a city where the promise of revolution turns into destruction and division.
Lajja: Shame
Taslima Nasrin - 1993
Despite being part of the country's small Hindu community, that is terrorized at every opportunity by Muslim fundamentalists, they refuse to leave their country, as most of their friends and relatives have done. Sudhamoy, an atheist, believes with a naive mix of optimism and idealism that his motherland will not let him down... And then, on 6 December 1992, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in India is demolished by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists. The world condemns the incident but its fallout is felt most acutely in Bangladesh, where Muslim mobs begin to seek out and attack the Hindus... The nightmare inevitably arrives at the Duttas' doorstep - and their world begins to fall apart.
The Hindi-Bindi Club
Monica Pradhan - 2007
They are the Hindi-Bindi Club, a nickname given by their American daughters to the mothers who left India to start anew—daughters now grown and facing struggles of their own.For Kiran, Preity, and Rani, adulthood bears the indelible stamp of their upbringing, from the ways they tweak their mothers’ cooking to suit their Western lifestyles to the ways they reject their mothers’ most fervent beliefs. Now, bearing the disappointments and successes of their chosen paths, these daughters are drawn inexorably home.Kiran, divorced, will seek a new beginning—this time requesting the aid of an ancient tradition she once dismissed. Preity will confront an old heartbreak—and a hidden shame. And Rani will face her demons as an artist and a wife. All will question whether they have the courage of the Hindi-Bindi Club, to hold on to their dreams—or to create new ones.An elegant tapestry of East and West, peppered with food and ceremony, wisdom and sensuality, this luminous novel breathes new life into timeless themes.
The Rice Mother
Rani Manicka - 2002
At fourteen, she finds herself traded in marriage to a stranger across the ocean in the fascinating land of Malaysia. Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality and a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength.By sheer willpower Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation -- but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and in turn inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit.
Magic Square
Salini Vineeth - 2020
scholar, practically living in her research lab, leading an uneventful life. Amudha’s life takes an adventurous turn, when she finds a puzzle in an old Mathematics book. Surprisingly, the puzzle has nothing to do with Mathematics. Amudha embarks on a journey to solve the enigma. Every twist and turn in her journey is filled with suspense and surprises. The journey challenges and threatens Amudha. Whenever Amudha solves a part of the puzzle, a new one presents itself. Will Amudha solve the puzzle? How far does the rabbit hole go? What awaits her at the end of it? Will Amudha be the same person if she comes out of it? Read on Magic Square for answers.
Lavinia
Ursula K. Le Guin - 2008
Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills. Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom, until suitors come. Her mother wants her to marry handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs say she must marry a foreigner--that she will be the cause of a bitter war--and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take her destiny into her own hands. And so she tells us what Virgil did not: the story of her life, and of the love of her life. Lavinia is a book of passion and war, generous and austerely beautiful, from a writer working at the height of her powers.
Burnt Sugar
Avni Doshi - 2019
She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, mixing up her maid's wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.This is a love story and a story about betrayal. But not between lovers - between mother and daughter. Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Burnt Sugar unpicks the slippery, choking cord of memory and myth that binds two women together, making and unmaking them endlessly.
Tell A Thousand Lies
Rasana Atreya - 2012
For this reason, she's obliged her old-fashioned grandmother by not doing well in school. She’s also resigned to remaining unwed; with three girls in the family, there’s simply not enough dowry to go around.Then a wedding alliance arrives for her oldest sister—a fair-skinned beauty. There's great rejoicing in their household. And, why not? The prospective father-in-law is the right-hand man of an important politician. As Pullamma helps ready the house for the bride-viewing—by washing the cow, by stringing flowers along doorways—she prays for the alliance to go through. Then something happens.Something so inconceivable, it will shape Pullamma's future in ways even the local soothsayer couldn’t have foretold.Tell A Thousand Lies is a sometimes sassy, sometimes sad but, ultimately, realistic look at how superstition, and the colour of a girl's skin, rules India's hinterlands.
Tarikshir: The Awakening
Khayaal Patel - 2018
While unrest surrounding the sudden death of the king of Devangarh grows, young prince Rudra Pratap Chauhan prepares to ascend the throne.But the kingdom is in turmoil. The Devangarh army is outnumbered and the British forces are closing in. To make matters worse, Rudra discovers the king’s death may not have been accidental after all. The strange appearance and disappearance of a mysterious hooded stranger and a series of ritualistic murders in which the bodies have been drained of blood, spread panic across the realm.As Rudra struggles to manage his new responsibilities and investigate his father’s death, dark secrets will be uncovered that will disrupt life as he knows it.
Mumbai Confidential: Good Cop, Bad Cop
Saurav Mohapatra - 2012
Five years ago, Arjun Kadam used to be a cop, a rising star in the ranks of the Mumbai Encounter Squad-an elite unit tasked by the powers-that-be to carry out extrajudicial executions of notorious gangsters. But the death of his pregnant wife at childbirth derailed his life and set him off on a spiral of depression and drug addiction, a pale shadow of his former self. When Kadam is the victim of a hit-and-run that also claims the life of a street urchin, he goes into coma for a month. Upon awakening, he finds a new sense of purpose and pursues the investigation, taking him on a journey through the deep, dark heart of Mumbai - from the glitzy tinsel of Bollywood, to the dank depths of the Mumbai Underworld, where the line between the police and the criminals has been blurred beyond recognition by his ex-colleagues on the Encounter Squad, who are now de-facto gangsters in uniform, running the very same extortion rackets they were tasked to eradicate. Obsessed with his mission, Kadam sets off a desperate gambit of deadly intrigue and deception that pits him against the very machine of violence and corruption he once helped create. “Gorgeously noir.” - Ron Marz (WITCHBLADE, ARTIFACTS, SHINKU, GREEN LANTERN) “Perfect example of noir storytelling in comics.” - GEEKADELPHIA.COM “Mohapatra's dialogue is sharp and his script is innovative, putting a clever twist on the genre. Shinde's lush and gorgeous cinematic art impresses the most, from strongly individual faces and photorealistic body language to a deep and rich range of shadows and light, water and blood. This is stylish, sophisticated, and metropolitan: a fresh entry in the noir genre with an Asian twist.” - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “It reads like a sub-continental version of SIN CITY and has all the best elements of clas
The Last Queen: A Novel of Courage and Resistance
Chitra Banerjee DivakaruniChitra Banerjee Divakaruni
In this dazzling novel, based on true-life events, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni presents the unforgettable story of Jindan, who transformed herself from daughter of the royal kennel keeper to powerful monarch. Sharp-eyed, stubborn, and passionate, Jindan was known for her beauty. When she caught the eye of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, she was elevated to royalty, becoming his youngest and last queen--and his favorite. And when her son, barely six years old, unexpectedly inherited the throne, Jindan assumed the regency. She transformed herself from pampered wife to warrior ruler, determined to protect her people and her son's birthright from the encroaching British Empire.Defying tradition, she stepped out of the zenana, cast aside the veil, and conducted state business in public, inspiring her subjects in two wars. Her power and influence were so formidable that the British, fearing an uprising, robbed the rebel queen of everything she had, but nothing crushed her indomitable will.An exquisite love story of a king and a commoner, a cautionary tale about loyalty and betrayal, a powerful parable of the indestructible bond between mother and child, and an inspiration for our times, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's novel brings alive one of the most fearless women of the nineteenth century, one whose story cries out to be told.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara - 2020
From his doorway, he can spot the glittering lights of the city’s fancy high-rises, and though his mother works as a maid in one, to him they seem a thousand miles away.Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit.But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari, and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force, and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again.Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India.
Girl in the Green Villa (Mansol Mysteries)
Yash Pawaskar - 2021
Their honeymoon plans go puff as India announces a nationwide lockdown.Months after living under the pressures of joint family, social distancing rules, and work-from-home stress, they get an opportunity to venture out. Viraj plans a trip to the inviting Green Villa for an intimate weekend getaway. But something is lurking beneath the surface.Will it pan out to be the exciting honeymoon that Viraj thinks they desperately need?What is Jhanak scared about?Who is the girl in the Green Villa?Key highlights of the story:• Fast-paced narration• Non-linear storytelling• Interesting twists and turns• Flavours of the supernatural• Imminent dread, doom, and deceit