Book picks similar to
The Serpent and the Rope by Raja Rao
fiction
indian
sahitya-akademi
indian-literature
Promise Me A Million Times
Keshav Aneel - 2016
For Edwin, it was where hewas going to chase his dreams, but for Charlie, it was just another place tobe with his only friend. However, when he meets Aster, who was silentlywalking through instabilities of her own destiny, he was in for anabsolute unthoughtful phase of profoundness that was going to lastforever.
An Area of Darkness
V.S. Naipaul - 1964
S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India.Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.
Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake
Preeti Shenoy - 2012
At twenty-six, she is plump, plain-looking, and without a boyfriend. A chance date and a bizarre twist of events lead her to the altar with suave Samir Sharma, only to be abandoned eight years later. As she struggles to stand on her own feet, Akash, a younger guy, enters her life. Can Nisha find love a second time?Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake is an unusual, a heart-warming, and gripping love-story between two people who have so much to lose by getting into a relationship with each other, yet so much to gain.
Maya's New Husband
Neil D'Silva - 2015
She is a hit with her students for her unconventional teaching techniques such as bringing a dead man's heart to school to explain her lessons. But, though she seems ebullient on the outside, within her own heart she harbors the pain of a recently and mysteriously deceased husband. In such a state, Maya's paths cross with the whimsical and weird art teacher of her school, Bhaskar Sadachari. An inexplicable chemistry begins working between the two and Maya feels strangely drawn to this person.Meanwhile, a serial killer is loose in the city. People are going missing, leaving absolutely no trace behind as though snatched by some supernatural entity. And somewhere within all this, there's a diabolical plot being hatched for Maya.Maya's New Husband is a psychological horror tale of the most vicious kind, which will leave you squirming in abject terror for days on end.
Inheritance
Indira Ganesan - 1998
Secretly, however, she longs to find out why her mysteriously distant mother agreed to have her sent away as a child. She spends her time studying Italian with her absentminded uncle and talking about boys and clothes with her favorite cousin until she finds the perfect escape from her mother’s rejection--a passionate affair with a young American. But the affair will have a surprising outcome, forcing Sonil to forgive her mother and to look to herself for the answers she will need in the coming years.
Sultan of Delhi: Ascension
Arnab Ray - 2016
But when the shadows of the past, of a friend he has lost forever and of a woman he can never be with, finally catch up to him, Arjun finds himself fighting the biggest battle of his life. For at stake is not just his iron hold over the government, but something even bigger---- his family...and his soul.Spanning five decades and two generations, Sultan of Delhi: Ascension is an explosive saga of ambition, greed, love and passion
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
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Mohsin Hamid - 2013
His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world's pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation, and exceeds it. the astonishing and riveting tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over "rising Asia." It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a striking slice of contemporary life at a time of crushing upheaval. Romantic without being sentimental, political without being didactic, and spiritual without being religious, it brings an unflinching gaze to the violence and hopes it depicts. And it creates two unforgettable characters who find moments of transcendent intimacy in the midst of shattering change.
चंद्रकांता
Babu Devakinandan Khatri - 1888
But there are obstacles galore in the paths of the lovers. There are evil ministers with sinister magicians at their beck and call, enemy kings only too happy to go into battle, masters of disguise who can fool the cleverest of spies, and magic all around. Then Chandrakanta gets trapped in a fantastic maze, from which only Virendra can rescue her. But will he be able to decipher the clues, follow the trail correctly and get to her before it is too late? And will their friends, Tej Singh, Chapla and the others, help them adequately with their deep knowledge of the art of divination and disguise?" Chandrakanta is a popular Hindi novel by Devaki Nandan Khatri. It is considered to be the first work of prose in the modern Hindi language, and may have significantly contributed to the language's popularity.
When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Meena Kandasamy - 2017
As he sets about reducing her to his idealised version of a kept woman, bullying her out of her life as an academic and writer in the process, she attempts to push back - a resistance he resolves to break with violence and rape. Smart, fierce and courageous When I Hit You is a dissection of what love meant, means and will come to mean when trust is undermined by violence; a brilliant, throat-tightening feminist discourse on battered faces and bruised male egos; and a scathing portrait of traditional wedlock in modern India.
Panchatantra
Pandit Vishnusharma
It is written around 200BC by the great Hindu Scholar Pandit Vishnu Sharma. Panchatantra means "the five books". It is a "Nitishastra" which means book of wise conduct in life. The book is written in the form of simple stories and each story has a moral and philosophical theme which has stood the test of time in modern age of atomic fear and madness. It guides us to attain success in life by understanding human nature. Panchatantra is commonly available in an abridged form written for children. Here is the complete translation of the book as written by Vishnu Sharma.
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. .
The Runaway Bridegroom (Marriages Made in India)
Sundari Venkatraman - 2014
But when the bridegroom runs away immediately after the wedding, the Maheshwari family’s world comes crashing down. They move to Jaipur to begin a new life in the city.Fourteen years later, as a management student in Delhi, Chanda takes up a temporary job at RS Software Pvt. Ltd and finds herself falling head-over-heels for her boss, Ranveer Singh. But, for all her feelings, Chanda is still a married woman. Meanwhile, Ranveer’s secretary, Shikha, is determined to win him for herself. Even though his second-in-command, Abhimanyu, keeps getting in the way, she keeps a steady eye on the main prize. So when Ranveer starts to show an interest in Chanda, Shikha is furious. Back in Jaipur, an astrologer predicts that Chanda’s errant husband will soon make an appearance.A secret childhood marriage, a vindictive secretary and unwelcome cosmic predictions—how much can Chanda deal with? And does anyone care about what she wants? Torn between the man she loves and the claim a missing husband still has on her, will Chanda ever find happiness?