Book picks similar to
Inconvenient Relations by Simi K. Rao
romance
review-copy
recommended-read
hindu
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.
The Perfect Groom
Sumeetha Manikandan - 2013
So, when a proposal from a young, handsome NRI comes along, her mother jumps at the opportunity and packs her daughter off to the US with her perfect groom.Nithya seems to have settled in with Ashok, ostensibly happy, if as yet childless, in her new life. When an old flame comes back into her life, however, the cracks in her perfect marriage begin to show…
Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh - 1956
By the time the monsoon broke, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier. One of these villages was Mano Majra.”It is a place, Khushwant Singh goes on to tell us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the “ghost train” arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refugees, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endured and transcends the ravages of war.Introduction by Arthur Lall
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.
Wrong Means Right End
Varsha Dixit - 2012
Her focus solely lies on making their ends meet and she has lost interest in love or dating. Sneha's best friend Nandini is now happily married to Aditya, an industrialist. Nandini's concern for Sneha makes her act as a matchmaker, who wants to fill her life with love and happiness. Sneha's regular pace of life is disturbed when Nikhil, a man with whom she shares an unpleasant past, enters in her life. He is haughty and Sneha will go to any extent to keep her distance from him. If these problems weren't enough, another troublemaker, Gayathri, enters the picture to create havoc. Gayathri is Aditya's ex girlfriend who still likes him and is trying her best to jeopardize Nandini and Aditya's relationship. The only person that could help Sneha in stopping Gayatri is Nikhil. Considering their hatred for each other, will Sneha approach Nikhil for saving Nandini and Aditya's marriage?
The Worst Daughter Ever
Aarti V. Raman - 2019
Lasya ‘LJ’ Raghavan is a spectacularly single, unsuccessful playwright with an estranged family, crippling debt, and a dead-end job. When the family matriarch Chandralekha Chakrapani dies, LJ has to face the family that considers her an epic failure… especially her father, who has taken a vow of silence against her; her cousin sister, Ahalya, who blames LJ for destroying her marriage; and bridezilla Kiki whose wedding has been cancelled. Adding to the family drama is Banjeet ‘Ben’ Dewar, her grandmother's lawyer who keeps showing up whenever LJ falls apart. Ben is everything LJ is looking for in a man, except Ahalya is interested in Ben too! Can LJ be selfish once more when the last time nearly destroyed her family? More importantly, can LJ's family forgive her when she is the ‘worst daughter ever’? Written in the style of bestselling Indian rom-coms, The Worst Daughter Ever explores love, loss, friendship, family, redemption and forgiveness in a funny, emotional, coming-of-age tale.
Malgudi Days
R.K. Narayan - 1943
K. Narayan’s centennialIntroducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India “the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story.” Composed of powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan’s imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This edition includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Love, Again
Shrruti Patole Clarence - 2015
When her estranged husband suddenly commits suicide she realizes that things wouldn’t be the same again…Shrikanth thought that he was a confirmed bachelor but when his mother refused to get herself treated for cancer unless he got married, he had to get a bride in a hurry.She needed a husband in name, to save her career while he needed to marry to please his mother. Will they find love second time around? Will they lower their shields and succumb to a mutual passion?
Take One Arranged Marriage...
Shoma Narayanan - 2013
and one bride not afraid of some covert rearranging!When Tara Sundaram learns that her father has found the perfect husband, she's not convinced. She may be from a traditional Indian family, but she is far from conventional. Perhaps she should check out her future husband in secret — just in case!When Tara bumps into Vikram Krishnan — all six feet of deliciousness — her blushes betray her outward coolness. Maybe marriage to Vikram will have its perks! But before she says 'yes', Tara has a few little rules for her husband-to-be.Only she hadn't counted on Vikram being just as keen to throw out the rule books as her...!
Sleeping on Jupiter
Anuradha Roy - 2015
A young woman jumps off. She has wild hair, sloppy clothes, a distracted air. She looks Indian, yet she is somehow not. The sudden violence of what happens next leaves the other passengers gasping. The train terminates at Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests and ashrams, three old women disembark only to encounter the girl once again. What is someone like her doing in this remote corner, which attracts only worshippers? Over the next five days, the old women live out their long-planned dream of a holiday together; their temple guide finds ecstasy in forbidden love; and the girl is joined by a photographer battling his own demons. The full force of the evil and violence beneath the serene surface of the town becomes evident when their lives overlap and collide. Unexpected connections are revealed between devotion and violence, friendship and fear as Jarmuli is revealed as a place with a long, dark past that transforms all who encounter it. This is a stark and unflinching novel by a spellbinding storyteller, about religion, love, and violence in the modern world.
Messed Up! But All for Love
Arvind Parashar - 2017
They are a loving anddoting young married couple, living a life of comfort in posh suburbanGurgaon. Neil's fitness consultant Srinya seems to be stirring sometrouble in their lives, though.Drishti is a TV news anchor and journalist and her husband Somesh, atop cop. They are bored of their mundane busy lives, until a chancemeeting with Neil and his friends in Cuba that changes everything.To add sanity and madness to their lives are the funny and mysteriousset of friends - Tom, Jerry, James, Mehr and Antriksha.The havoc ensues when Drishti gets abducted and Neil is framed for it.Gauri finds out some bitter truths and leaves Neil. But what really is thetruth?When facts finally surface, we will know how much these lives areMessed Up! But All for Love.
Serious Men
Manu Joseph - 2010
Ayyan Mani, one of the thousands of dalit (untouchable caste) men trapped in Mumbai’s slums, works in the Institute of Theory and Research as the lowly assistant to the director, a brilliant self-assured astronomer. Ever wily and ambitious, Ayyan weaves two plots, one involving his knowledge of an illicit romance between his married boss and the institute’s first female researcher, and another concerning his young son and his soap-opera-addicted wife. Ayyan quickly finds his deceptions growing intertwined, even as the Brahmin scientists wage war over the question of aliens in outer space. In his debut novel, Manu Joseph expertly picks apart the dynamics of this complex world, offering humorous takes on proselytizing nuns and chronicling the vanquished director serving as guru to his former colleagues. This is at once a moving portrait of love and its strange workings and a hilarious portrayal of men’s runaway egos and ambitions. .
A Bollywood Affair
Sonali Dev - 2014
Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be—if her husband would just come and claim her. Bollywood’s favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naïve village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir’s tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she’s trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Mili’s life—cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate’s elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie. Heartfelt, witty, and thoroughly engaging, Sonali Dev’s debut is both a vivid exploration of modern India and a deeply honest story of love, in all its diversity.
The Twentieth Wife
Indu Sundaresan - 2002
As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old -- and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known -- and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible.Shot through with wonder and suspense, The Twentieth Wife is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.
Love Lasts Forever...
Vikrant Khanna - 2014
He believes he hasfound his perfect soul mate, and come what may, his love for her will lastforever.Seven years later, he gets married to her. Big mistake!A week later, he completely hates her and believes she has turned into adevil.But his perception about love and life change when he hears the poignantlove story of Shekhar, his Captain, on a ship that later gets hijacked bythe pirates of Somalia.As they are left fighting for their lives; they confront if love truly can lastforever…? Or does it get too late