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Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life by Aditi Mathur Kumar
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Song of the Cuckoo Bird
Amulya Malladi - 2005
Once there, she makes a courageous yet foolish choice that alters the fabric of her life: Instead of becoming a wife and mother, youthful passion drives Kokila to remain at the ashram.Through the years, Kokila revisits her decision as she struggles to make her mark in a country where untethered souls like hers merely slip through the cracks. But standing by her conviction, she makes a home in Tella Meda alongside other strong yet deeply flawed women. Sometimes they are her friends, sometimes they are her enemies, but always they are her family.Like Isabel Allende, Amulya Malladi crafts complex characters in deeply atmospheric settings that transport readers through different eras, locales, and sensibilities. Careening from the 1940s to the present day, Song of the Cuckoo Bird chronicles India's tumultuous history as generations of a makeshift family seek comfort and joy in unlikely places--and from unlikely hearts.
Vanity Bagh
Anees Salim - 2013
They are hired todispense a batch of stolen scooters to different corners of the city; not until the city rocks with scooter bombs does Imran realize that they have been involved in a terrorist act.One of the prime accused in the 11/11 serial blasts, Imranis destined to live in captivity for the next fourteen years. He kills time plotting jailbreak until he is assigned to the bookmaking section of the prison. The new job equips him with a new facility: each time he opens a book and stares at its blank pages, he sees them scribbled with tales from Vanity Bagh. Imran thus traces the history of animosity between Vanity Bagh, nicknamed Little Pakistan, and Mehendi, a Hindu neighbourhood.The solitude and reflection that characterize Imran’snarrative is undercut by communal tension and a simmeringviolence. Touched with a wistful small-town feeling in themidst of a teeming city, Vanity Bagh is a darkly comic tale.
This Child is Mine
Henry Denker - 1995
She feel that neither she nor the baby's father can provide adequate care for the child. The Salems adopt the child and raise him as their own for two years--until Lori and her boyfriend decide they want their son back. The dramatic courtroom struggle seems ripped from today's headlines.
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy - 1997
In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale. . . .Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Daniyal Mueenuddin - 2009
An aging feudal landlord's household staff, the villagers who depend on his favor, and a network of relations near and far who have sought their fortune in the cities confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. Mueenuddin bares—at times humorously, at times tragically—the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and presents a vivid picture of a time and a place, of the old powers and the new, as the Pakistani feudal order is undermined and transformed.
The Code of Manavas
Arpit Bakshi - 2018
A new race, the Manavas, now exists on Bhoomi, the erstwhile Earth, which is divided into two cities—Madhavpur and Ayudhpur. In the quiet and peaceful city of Madhavpur, a reclusive Krishna is busy with an immense task. He has to prepare a new abode for the Manavas before an impending apocalypse destroys them. He knows something that nobody else does—the Manavas are running out of time faster than they can imagine, and there are no inhabitable planets to escape to. To make matters worse, there is someone in Madhavpur who wants to destroy Krishna and subjugate each Manava. The Manavas, it seems, are doomed. Yet Krishna knows there is a slim chance of survival for the Manavas, although there is a huge price to be paid for it. Will the various factions of the Manavas unite for the greater good? Will Krishna, who saved them during the turn of the last Yuga, be able to save them now? What will be the price to pay? Enter the mythical world of Maha Vishnu and get swept up in a fast-paced suspenseful narrative.
What the Body Remembers
Shauna Singh Baldwin - 1999
So she is elated to learn she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the drastic changes.Meticulously researched and beautifully written, What the Body Remembers is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual.
Gypsy Masala
Preethi Nair - 2000
"Tell me about your dreams, and if you have dared to follow them." This is the challenge for three members of the Vishavan family. Evita (real name Molu, but she's always had a tendency towards the theatrical) is stuck in a 9-to-5 job until she hears the irresistible beat of a drum, summoning her to follow her dream. It takes her to faraway places and people, but the rhythm of change is also to be found closer to home. Sheila and Bali have raised Evita as their own child. Yet their sadness has kept them apart; holding on to their separate secrets, they have rejected the possibility of following any dreams. Neither expects the disruption that follows Evita's return. From remote villages in Kerala to the heart of contemporary London, this is a story of discovery, love, and what might happen if you dare to live your dream.
The Four Patriots
Sumit Agarwal - 2016
Salman, CEO of Coffee Moments, loves Mahi.Raghav, a virtuous politician, loves Neha.Aditya, an altruist businessman, is married to Prachi.Destiny invites them to step out of their comfort zones and fight the devil that holds their country captive. Will they choose country over love, comfort and success? Will they enter the Chakravyuh, intricately laid down to ensure their destruction? Will they come out of it alive and win back our lost pride?Buckle up for a roller-coaster ride into the lives of these four young men who are out to change the system which could not be changed in the last 70 years of independence. A story fraught with romance and patriotism. The story unveils how the four patriots ( our protagonists ) fight against terrorism, corruption, naxalites, poverty and many other problems, apart from the web spun for their destruction by their rivals ( the villians ). Against all odds, they come out victorious, ultimately bringing glory and pride to our country.Also pick this book if you are a patriot and do not believe that “ is desh ka kuch nahin ho sakta.” If you do, all the more reason to read it !
I Played a Game with Life
Richardson Susairaj - 2013
Encountering ‘Life’ itself in a dream, he’s convinced into playing a game with it. A game that ends when Life's travails get so hard that Sam is pushed to tears.A girl enters Sam’s life. The moment he sets eyes on her he knows she’s going to play hard to get, but sparks do indeed fly between them, taken into a world of romance. When everything looked like its going according to the plan, it just wasn't. This is when Life starts pressing down on Sam. Though Sam’s attitude about living life is to be happy and cool, he finds himself being tested.Circumstances pushes him into a world of discomfort and guilt. Amidst such emotional turmoil, he manages to grip on to hope. Sam is expected to worry, complain, and give up. One event after another sets him on edge to make him shed that tear which veritably ends Life's game. Does he win the game with Life, or will he spiral into what so many people who've given up the fight have fallen into? You simply need to be part of his life to find out.
The Toss of a Lemon
Padma Viswanathan - 2008
Hanumarathnam, a village healer with some renown as an astrologer, has approached her parents with a marriage proposal. In keeping with custom, he provides his prospective in-laws with his horoscope. The problem is that his includes a prediction, albeit a weak one, that he will die in his tenth year of marriage. Despite the ominous horoscope, Sivakami’s parents hesitate only briefly, won over by the young man and his family’s reputation as good, upstanding Brahmins. Once married, Sivikami and Hanumarathnam grow to love one another and the bride, now in her teens, settles into a happy life. But the predictions of Hanumarathnam’s horoscope are never far from her new husband’s mind. When their first child is born, as a strategy for accurately determining his child’s astrological charts, Hanumarathnam insists the midwife toss a lemon from the window of the birthing room the moment his child appears. All is well with their first child, a daughter, Thangam, whose birth has a positive influence on her father’s astrological future. But this influence is fleeting: when a son, Vairum, is born, his horoscope confirms that his father will die within three years.Resigned to his fate, Hanumarathnam sets himself to the unpleasant task of readying his household for his imminent death. Knowing the hardships and social restrictions Sivakami will face as a Brahmin widow, he hires and trains a servant boy called Muchami to help Sivakami manage the household and properties until Vairum is of age.When Sivakami is eighteen, Hanumarathnam dies as predicted. Relentless in her adherence to the traditions that define her Brahmin caste, she shaves her head and dons the white sari of the widow. With some reluctance, she moves to her family home to raise her children under the protection of her brothers, but then realizes that they are not acting in the best interests of her children. With her daughter already married to an unreliable husband of her brothers’ choosing, and Vairum’s future also at risk, Sivakami leaves her brothers and returns to her marital home to raise her family.With the freedom to make decisions for her son’s future, Sivakami defies tradition and chooses to give him a secular education. While her choice ensures that Vairum fulfills his promise, it also sets Sivakami on a collision course with him. Vairum, fatherless in childhood, childless as an adult, rejects the caste identity that is his mother’s mainstay, twisting their fates in fascinating and unbearable ways.
Bombay Girl
Kavita Daswani - 2012
And then she moves to London on a whim to pursue an interior design course, where she meets and falls passionately in love wi th Jagdish Sachdev - he of the compassionate heart and matchless brains. But Jag leaves her, citing irreconcilable differences between their families. Sohana returns home to the news that the business empire her grandfather had built over the years will wind up either in the hands of the highest bidder or with the grandson (but of course) who shows the most mettle. As her brothers race to inherit the business, Sohana is wooed, and her ethics and loyalties tested. In this first instalment of Kavita Daswani's trilogy, with secrets tumbling out and dramas unfolding all around her, Sohana must make up her mind about what and who she is in the scheme of things. About the Author: Kavita Daswani Kavita Daswani is currently a fashion correspondent for CNN International, CNBC Asia, and Women's Wear Daily. She has written for the Los Angeles Times and the International Herald Tribune among many other publications and has been the fashion editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. She has authored the best-selling books For Matrimonial Purposes, The Village Bride of Beverly Hills, Indie Girl and Salaam, Paris. Her books have been published in seventeen langu
In Custody
Anita Desai - 1984
An impoverished college lecturer, Deven, sees a way to escape from the meanness of his daily life when he is asked to interview India’s greatest Urdu poet, Nur – a project that can only end in disaster.
A Strange and Sublime Address
Amit Chaudhuri - 1991
This novel tells the story of the atmosphere in the small house where they live. Chaudhuri writes precisely and carefully trying to capture in the rhythms of his prose the faded happiness of things, the strange, pure remembered moments