Three dancers in Kochi mastermind their sex lives over email. A young wife in Mumbai becomes obsessed with a dead woman’s online relics. Strange (and familiar) troll wars drag at a writer’s peace of mind. Her daughter’s cellphone conversations deeply worry a cook in Delhi. A young mother finds a job monitoring disturbing content for a social media company.The stories in this dazzling debut collection tap into the rich vein of love, violence and intimacy that technology, particularly the Internet, has brought to the lives of Indians over the last two decades. Two decades that transformed India’s digital landscape, where would-be lovers went from cooing into cordless phones to swiping right on cellphones.Whimsical in its telling and brutal in its probing of the human mind, these stories breathe unexpected life into the dark and joyful corners of a country learning to relish and resist globalisation.

    It revolves around a limited number of characters, confines itself in time and space, and has a well-plotted narrative that drives its central theme. Within the traditional framework, however, creativity flowers and a fresh and imaginative story emerges. This volume is chock-full with such stories, written by authors well known in their regional languages as well as those who have made a name for themselves in English literary circles. Carefully selected by India's literary giant, the late Khushwant Singh, these pieces represent the best of Indian writing from around the country.

    In “Requiem”, a woman goes to Alaska to try and make sense of her aunt’s disappearance. An eleventh century poet wakes to find he is as an artificially intelligent companion on a starship. A woman of no account has the ability to look into the past.Singh's work dives into the vast strangeness of the universe without and within, and she unblinkingly explores the ways we move through space and time: together, yet always apart.Contents:- With Fate Conspire (2013)- A Handful of Rice (2012)- Peripeteia (2013)- Lifepod (2007)- Oblivion: A Journey (2008)- Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra (2010)- Are You Sannata3159? (2010)- Indra's Web (2011)- Ruminations in an Alien Tongue (2012)- Sailing the Antarsa (2013)- Cry of the Kharchal (2013)- Wake-Rider (2014)- Ambiguity Machines: An Examination (2015)- Requiem (2018)

    They had no other choice but to take a plunge into their deepest fear and leave the rest to destiny. Their characters was tested out of their comfort zone and it witnessed abstruse results; a PhD scholar fights to win a pizza making contest and a tennis prodigy running for his life in a war torn, bloodied Island. Extreme circumstances and their consequences made these ordinary individuals extraordinary . Was the test imposed on them by someone? Or did they invite it on themselves. The Blue Moon Day is that Once in a Blue Moon day story which questions an individual's priorities, ridicules the worldly routines and finally redefines happiness.

    Their struggle for an independent Nagaland and their continuing search for identity provides the backdrop for the stories that make up this unusual collection. Describing how ordinary people cope with violence, how they negotiate power and force, how they seek and find safe spaces and enjoyment in the midst of terror, the author details a way of life under threat from the forces of modernization and war. No one the young, the old, the ordinary housewife, the willing partner, the militant who takes to the gun, and the young woman who sings even as she is being raped is untouched by the violence. Theirs are the stories that form the subtext of the struggles that lie at the internal faultlines of the Indian nation-state. These are stories that speak movingly of home, country, nation, nationality, identity, and direct the reader to the urgency of the issues that lie at their heart.

    Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement.  In ‘The Museum of Final Journeys’ an unnamed government official is called upon to inspect a faded mansion of forgotten treasures, each sent home by the absent, itinerant master. As he is taken through the estate, wondering whether to save these precious relics, he reaches the final – greatest – gift of all, looming out of the shadows.     In ‘Translator, Translated’, middle-aged Prema meets her successful publisher friend Tara at a school reunion. Tara hires her as a translator, but Prema, buoyed by her work and the sense of purpose it brings, begins deliberately to blur the line between writer and translator, and in so doing risks unravelling her desires and achievements.    The final story is of Ravi, living hermit-like in the burnt-out shell of his family home high up in the Himalayan mountains. He cultivates not only silence and solitude but a secret hidden away in the woods, concealed from sight. When a film crew from Delhi intrude upon his seclusion, it compels him to withdraw even further until he magically and elusively disappears…      Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

    ‘Our purpose is to fulfil our destiny…All life is light and shadow.’ Like any other place on earth, the territory of the Adis in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh is ‘Pensam’—the ‘in-between’ place. Anything can happen here, and everything can be lived, and ‘the narrow boat that we call life sails along somehow in calm or stormy weather’. A mysterious boy who fell from the sky is accepted as a son of the village and grows up to become a respected elder. A young woman wounded in love is healed by a marriage of which she expected little. A mother battles fate and the law for a son she has not seen since she lost him as an infant. A remote hamlet gets a road, but the new world that comes with it threatens upheaval. And as villages become small towns and towns approximate cities, the brave and patient few guard the old ways, negotiating change with memory and remembrance. An intricate web of stories, images and the history of a tribe, The Legends of Pensam is a lyrical and moving tribute to the human spirit. With a poet’s sense for incident and language, Mamang Dai paints a memorable portrait of a land that is at once particular and universal.

    A young man’s uncanny gift for sculpting statues out of sand makes the women of his village swoon–until the men plot to put a stop to it. A small town of “utter inconsequence” prepares excitedly for a visit from President Clinton. This stunning debut collection offers brilliant snapshots of life’s small reversals and a broad-stroke portrait of our times.

    Featuring two centuries of women's short fiction, ranging from established Queens of the short story like Alice Munro and Angela Carter, to contemporary rising stars like Miranda July and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, this is the biggest and most beautiful collection in print today.Handpicked by one of the nation's favourite novelists, Victoria Hislop - herself a great writer of, and champion for, short stories - and divided thematically into collections on love, loss and the lives of women, there's a story for every mood, mindset and moment in life.CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE: Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Emma Donoghue, Daphne Du Maurier, Stella Duffy, Susan Hill, Doris Lessing, Penelope Lively, Katherine Mansfield, Hilary Mantel, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Ali Smith, Muriel Spark, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf.

    Two sisters share a husband when one fails to produce a child for the longest time. An American diplomat's urgent inquires about the Malaysian treasury’s facilities are hilariously misunderstood. A daring civil servant proposes to a lady in his Ceylonese hometown mere minutes after meeting her, breaking a thousand years of marriage protocol.M. Shanmughalingam's debut collection paints, with gentle wit and humour, the concerns and intrigues of the Jaffna Tamil community in Malaya. Satirical yet deeply empathetic, these fifteen stories explore what happens when we hold on to—and choose to leave behind—our traditions and identities in a changing world.

    This is a place where teenage love and friendships are tested by the violence that threatens to erupt at the slightest provocation. A town that always pulls you back into its ways, no matter how cosmopolitan the city has made you.In 'Diwali in Muzaffarnagar' - Tanuj Solanki's new book of short stories after 'Neon Noon' - young men and women straddle the past and the present, the metropolis and the small town, and also the parallel needs of life: solitude and family.

    In this utopian world, women rule and men are content with their places in the kitchen. The queen of this kingdom explains how women won and kept their peace against men and their war-like ways.This edition of a feminist utopian classic is a conversation across time; Durga Bai, a contemporary tribal woman artist from Central India, brings her own vision to bear on a Muslim gentlewoman’s radical tale.

    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 Fonseca family gathers in the Carvalho mansion for the birthday of Savio Fonseca. for his 75th birthday, Savio Fonseca's two daughters Joanna and Carol, who are settled abroad, come down to celebrate his birthday with Savio's son-in-law Sam. On this occasion, Eduardo, who is Savio's cousin drops in with his wife.On the night before Savio's birthday, when the family is spending time together, the electricity fails, because of which the entire place is in darkness. In this dark setting, the occasion seems right for sharing ghost stories. Soon the entire family starts to swap ghost stories, which revolve around the history of the Fonseca family. These stories range from mysterious sightings to lonely buildings and magic spells.The stories are split up into two sections and every character has a story to narrate. These stories have their roots in the Fonseca family and give readers a look into the happenings of the family members in the past. The hopes, dreams, personalities and traits of all the members of this family are revealed through the course of this book. Even the family name is a topic of speculation, with Savio's wife Lillian being keener on safeguarding its honor than Savio himself. This interest raises a number of doubts. The secret that Savio and his wife have been guarding from their daughters is soon to be unravelled.

    A man living on a tea plantation in the Nilgiri Hills realises he’s in love with his daughter-in-law; a young family eagerly awaits the launch of Shakti-Cola; a chronically anxious yoga retreat manager struggles with the demands of her enlightenment-seeking Western patrons; and a family legacy hangs in the balance when a horrifying discovery is unearthed on their Rajasthani estate. Traversing thirteen Indian states, One Point Two Billion illuminates the exhilarating diversity of the second most populous nation in the world. Moving from towering megacity to remote detention camp, from the canals of rural Punjab to an exclusive club in Delhi, these remarkable stories offer glimpses into the loves, triumphs, and tragedies of everyday life in a world torn between tradition and the shock of modernity. Laced with biting humour and injected with subtlety and emotion, the stories in this mesmerising collection portray the vast array of lives co-existing within the uneasy imbalance of Indian society. ‘Varied in range, concentrated in power - these stories are a deeply satisfying read.’ - Kamila Shamshie ‘This is a wonderful collection, slicing and dicing India in thirteen unexpected ways.’ - Siddhartha Deb ‘One of the finest books to come out of India this year. Rao zooms in on forgotten lives - ordinary, extraordinary, absurd, tragic. His writing is subtle, delightfully wry. I loved it.’ - Mirza Waheed ‘Sometimes a novel is so good that you don’t want it to end. I wanted each story to be expanded into a novel, which I then wouldn't have wanted to end.’ - Sandra Newman ‘These are deft, anxious, and haunting stories of a people caught between two chasms, the medieval and the modern.’ - Jeet Thayil