Book picks similar to
Durga's Secret: Everyone Lives on the Edge in Fear by Devdutt Pattanaik
mythology
indian
fiction
india
Parliamental
Meghnad S - 2019
As they navigate their way around Parliament, handling backroom deals, nepotistic party heads, and laws that seem to be tailor-made to benefit the ruling party, they learn that politics and idealism don't always go together. While Srikar tries to adapt to his new avatar and lie low, Raghav uses his Twitter alter ego, @Arnavinator, to vent his frustration and spread chaos. But when a new bill that threatens freedom of expression is bulldozed through with impunity, Srikar and Raghav must make a choice—to compromise on their values or to stand up for what is right. But at what cost? And can they and their unlikely allies—a jaded lawyer, an ambitious journalist and a rising YouTube star—really make a difference? A heady mix of politics, satire and current events, Parliamental is a roller-coaster ride through the corridors of power.
Adrishya - True Stories of Indian Spies
EPIC Television's popular - 2017
Some remain invisible, away from direct combat and yet risk their lives to protect the honour of their king and country. These are the faceless heroes of war—the spies—who collect classified information about the enemy, skilfully helping the ruler and the government of the land to safeguard their own territory.Packed with action, Adrishya is a collection of India's greatest spy stories. It captures the lives of spies—extraordinary men and women—through the danger, the fear and the triumphs. It narrates their heroic acts and follows them as they travel through dangerous landscapes, slip into disguises and hoodwink enemy soldiers. Starting off with India's first spy from the Mahabharata to the RAW officials of the 1971 war, this book is a collection of real spy stories which will entertain and inspire at the same time.
Norse Mythology (Mythology Trilogy, #2)
Stephan Weaver - 2015
This eBook delves into the past and emerges with a legion of breath taking accounts of events, gods, heroes, creatures, worlds and much more. Inside you will learn about... - Gods and Goddesses - The Nine Worlds - Heroes and Legends - Mythological Creatures - Ten Little Known Facts about Norse Mythology Whether you are a helpless fan of Norse Mythology or one of history this book will serve you in more ways than one. As the content is sourced from translations of the Old Norse literature, this will give you an authoritative insight in to the pre-Christian society of Europe.
White As Milk and Rice: Stories of India’s Isolated Tribes
Nidhi Dugar Kundalia - 2020
The original inhabitants of India, these Adivasis still live in forests and hills, with religious beliefs, traditions and rituals so far removed from the rest of the country that they represent an anthropological wealth of our heritage.This book weaves together prose, oral narratives and Adivasi history to tell the stories of six remarkable tribes of India—reckoning with radical changes over the last century—as they were pulled apart and thrown together in ways none of them fathomed.
Indira
Devapriya Roy - 2018
Who was Indira Priyadarshini, the person after whom her grandfather named her? And why her? What is her legacy as India’s first—and only—woman prime minister?Over the course of a long, hot summer and a curious friendship with an artist who is working on a biography of Mrs Gandhi, young Indira gets tangled up in the life and times of her memorable namesake. Sometimes by design and sometimes by accident, story after story comes alive—about a childhood spent in Allahabad growing the Vanar Sena, of a youthful romance with the charming Feroze Gandhi, of stints in jail and elephant rides through pouring rain, a magnificent audacity that catapulted India onto the international stage, and of the final, tragic end that ripped apart the fabric of the nation.Real and imagined worlds, the past and present, text and image all entwine as Indira walks us through the most formative decades of political life of India.
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
Salman Rushdie - 2015
A masterful, mesmerizing modern tale about worlds dangerously colliding, the monsters that are unleashed when reason recedes, and a beautiful testament to the power of love and humanity in chaotic times. Inspired by 2,000 years of storytelling yet rooted in the concerns of our present moment, this is a spectacular achievement--enchanting, both very funny and terrifying. It is narrated by our descendants 1000 years hence, looking back on "The War of the Worlds" that began with "the time of the strangenesses": a simple gardener begins to levitate; a baby is born with the unnerving ability to detect corruption in people; the ghosts of two long-dead philosophers begin arguing once more; and storms pummel New York so hard that a crack appears in the universe, letting in the destructive djinns of myth (as well as some graphic superheroes). Nothing less than the survival of our world is at stake. Only one, a djinn princess who centuries before had learned to love humankind, resolves to help us: in the face of dynastic intrigue, she raises an army composed of her semi-magical great-great--etc.--grandchildren--a motley crew of endearing characters who come together to save the world in a battle waged for 1,001 nights--or, to be precise, two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights.
Azadi
Arundhati Roy - 2020
Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom—a chasm or a bridge?—the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times.The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.
The Vedas and Upanishads for Children
Roopa Pai - 2019
Three thousand years ago, deep inside the forests of India, agreat ‘thought revolution’ was brewing.In those forest labs, the brightest thinker–philosopherscontemplated the universe, reflected on ancient texts called theVedas and came up with startling insights into questions westill don’t have final answers to, like:• What is the universe made of?• How do I know I’m looking at a tree when I see one?• Who am I? My body, my mind, my intelligence, my emotions,or none of the above?And where did they put those explosive findings?In a sprawling body of goosebumpy and fascinating oralliterature called the Upanishads! Intimidated? Don’t be! Forthis joyful, fun guide to some of India’s longest-lasting secularwisdoms, reinterpreted for first-time explorers by Roopa Pai, isguaranteed to keep you turning the pages.Why haven’t you read it yet?
Goddess Legacy
M.W. Muse - 2013
rather Adin Shepard was the hottest guy in school before he graduated a couple of weeks ago. Now it's summer vacation and she's not sure when she'll get to see him again. Until he shows up at her surprise seventeenth birthday party. Cue saliva glands--it's time to drool.But her giddiness is cut short when her guardian delivers an emotional blow, telling Legacy her mother hadn't died when she was baby, but that she'd left for Legacy's protection all those years ago. After the initial shock, she expects some story about how her mother was in the Witness Protection Program or something else just as crazy, but when she's told that her mother is a Greek Goddess and that Legacy is changing into one too, she thinks her guardian needs a trip to a mental hospital. Legacy a goddess? Um, yeah. Right. And her BFF is the Easter Bunny.While trying to make sense out of something that was impossible to believe, Adin asks Legacy out on a date. She is thrilled that her fantasy might become a reality, but when she meets the new guy in town, River, she discovers everything isn't always as it seems, and the legacy she wants just might not be the legacy she is destined to have.
The Dark Tower: And Other Stories
C.S. Lewis - 1977
S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.
Duryodhana
V. Raghunathan - 2014
The popular tellings of the Mahabharata are about Duryodhana'sdeviousness, obstinacy and greed for power that would bring about thebattle of Kurukshetra between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, and hisown downfall. But was there more to him? Was he all black, or was it a matter ofshades of grey? What was he? True heir or pretender to the throne?Arch villain or brave prince defending his rajadharma?Ace strategist or wicked schemer? History, they say, is written by the victors. So we have never heard theside that Duryodhana presents. The epic's enigmatic villain finally hashis say -- on people, their motives and their machinations. For the firsttime we read a different meaning into episodes we may be familiar with --be it the attempted killing of Bhima, the burning of the wax house, thefamous game of dice or even Draupadi's vastraharan -- and get insightsinto the story we may not have come across before. Here is the crownprince of Hastinapura as we have never known him, adding yet anotherdimension to the labyrinth that is the Mahabharata.
The Tandoor Murder
Maxwell Pereira - 2018
What exactly happened on the night of the murder? How did the accused, Sushil Sharma, Naina’s partner and Youth Congress leader, manage to stave off conviction for more than a decade? What were the twists and turns in the case and how did the investigation manage to stay the course? ACP Maxwell Pereira, who was in charge of the case, gives us an insider’s account of events as they unfolded, based on his notes and investigation reports as well as the many stories that appeared in the media.A page-turner of a book, forthright and dramatic, with unexpected nuggets of information and insights into the way policing and the legal and political systems work in India by someone who has seen it all.
Akbar and Birbal
Amita Sarin - 2005
This book brings together a selection of these stories, along with fascinating historical details about the Mughal court, the emperor and his witty courtier. From the time that a chance meeting in the forest brought Akbar and Birbal face-to-face, the emperor and his minister together faced dilemmas that ranged from the ethical to the personal, from debates on the true nature of justice to the problems of hen-pecked husbands. An old widow is robbed of her bag of gold and Birbal nails the culprit. A thief runs away with the emperor’s royal seal but gives Akbar a surprise later. Birbal manages a miraculous escape when envious courtiers conspire to have him killed. The king asks his ministers how many crows there are in the city, and only Birbal has the answer.With well-researched introductions to each aspect of Mughal life, Amita Sarin recreates Akbar’s court in all its grandeur and vitality. The stories in this collection are both amusing and thought-provoking, both historical and timeless.
Japanese Fairy Tales
Yei Theodora Ozaki - 1903
Some are "Momotaro, "The Son of a Peach", "The Jellyfish and the Monkey", "The Mirror of Matsuyama", "The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child", "The Stones of Five Colors and the Empress Jokwa."