dissertation. Instead, he comes home with a bride named Viji, an Indian woman he barely knows. This seemingly unlikely pair eventually wind up in Sacramento, where they buy a ranch house and give birth to triplets.In this new American world of shag carpets and pudding pops, Viji seeks consolation in her prayer room, which she visits frequently to gossip, sass, and seek advice from the framed portraits of her dead relatives. It is here where Viji feels most herself and where these deceased family members feel “as real to her as she’d been to them.”A hilarious and heartfelt debut, The Prayer Room re-examines the meaning of family—the people who live down the hall, the people who exist only in our memories, and the people who roll their eyes at you from within their picture frames.

    Ships That Pass tells the story of Tara and Shaan, near strangers to each other after fourteen years of being married, and Tara's sister, Radhika, recently engaged, almost on a whim, to someone she barely knows. Even as Radhika tries to understand how a once ideal marriage has come undone, and struggles with her own feelings for an older man, tragedy strikes: Tara dies in mysterious circumstances and Shaan is arrested for murder. In the aftermath, Radhika realizes that while life may seldom turn out as expected, the only hope lies in finding the courage to take one's chances. A meditation on the nature of love and marriage, this subtle novella is vintage Shashi Deshpande. '[A] mesmerizing writer. . .you can never walk away from her stories.' About the AuthorShashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. She studied economics in Mumbai, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of eight novels, the best known of which are That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award and is considered a landmark in Indian writing in English; The Dark Holds No Terror; Small Remedies; Moving On; and The Country of Deceit.

    This roller-coaster ride of adventure, laughter and heartache, as she balances her love life with her struggle for independence, will keep you guessing – What rules will she break next? How far will she go to find herself?

    Amongst the evacuees is Dinesh, whose world has contracted to a makeshift camp where time is measured by the shells that fall around him like clockwork. Alienated from family, home, language, and body, he exists in a state of mute acceptance, numb to the violence around him, till he is approached one morning by an old man who makes an unexpected proposal: that Dinesh marry his daughter, Ganga. Marriage, in this world, is an attempt at safety, like the beached fishing boat under which Dinesh huddles during the bombings. As a couple, they would be less likely to be conscripted to fight for the rebels, and less likely to be abused in the case of an army victory. Thrust into this situation of strange intimacy and dependence, Dinesh and Ganga try to come to terms with everything that has happened, hesitantly attempting to awaken to themselves and to one another before the war closes over them once more.Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage is a feat of extraordinary sensitivity and imagination, a meditation on the fundamental elements of human existence—eating, sleeping, washing, touching, speaking—that give us direction and purpose, even as the world around us collapses. Set over the course of a single day and night, this unflinching debut confronts marriage and war, life and death, bestowing on its subjects the highest dignity, however briefly.

    Along the way, he discovers unlikely allies: Samar, an eccentric pianist; Zaira, the reclusive queen of Bollywood; and Rhea, a married woman who seduces Karan into a tender but twisted affair. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, the four lives are irreparably torn apart. Flung into a Fitzgeraldian world of sex, crime and collusion, Karan learns that what the heart sees the mind's eye may never behold. Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi's The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay is a razor sharp chronicle of four friends caught in modern India 's tidal wave of uneven prosperity and political failure. It's also a profoundly moving meditation on love's betrayal and the redemptive powers of friendship.

    His friend and confidant, 17-year-old Bhandu, is not faring any better — his parents are divorcing, his father has abandoned him, and the American tourist he is infatuated with doesn’t even know he exists. Bhandu and Pinku seek solace in the distracting shenanigans of their friend Guggi — a pampered rich brat who can do anything for a thrill. Guggi’s reckless hedonism lands the threesome in a series of 'sexpot' escapades — each adventure weirder than the one before.But their seemingly innocuous joyride is about to end.With their Class 12 exams around the corner, Guggi, restless to leave a mark, takes over the school’s notorious protection racket in a violent coup. The fallout drags the trio into a murky world of heartbreak, betrayal, and bloody vengeance . . .Fast, funny, and earthy, The Virgins is a coming-of-age novel that marks the debut of a promising writer.

    Jorasanko was right at the hub of the Bengal Renaissance, with the family at the forefront of the movement, and its women playing a pivotal role.In a sprawling novel that spans a unique phase in the history of Bengal and India, Aruna Chakravarti provides a fascinating account of how the Tagore women influenced and were int urn influenced by their illustrious male counterparts, the times they lived in and the family they belonged to. She paints memorable portraits of women like Digambari, Dwarkanath's strong-willed wife who refuses to accept her husband's dalliance with alcohol and Western ways; Sarada Sundari, the obese, indolent but devoted wife of Debendranath, who is appalled to see the old world order slipping by; the indomitable Jogmaya, who takes on Debendranath and splits the Tagore family in two. There are also the young daughters and daughters-in-law. The tough, resourceful Jnanadanandini who gave the women of Bengal a new way of wearing the sari and initiated the concept of 'nuclear family'; Swarnakumari, universally acknowledged as a pioneer of women's writing in India; and Rabindranath's muse the gentle, melancholic Kadambari.Jorasanko mirrors the hopes and fears, triumphs and defeats that the women of the Tagore household experienced in their intricate interpersonal relationships, as well as the adjustments they were continually called upon to makw as daughters and daughters-in-law of one of the most eminent families of the land.

    Instead he takes his two beloved dogs and goes on a last hunt, determined to end his life on his own terms. But as the people he meets and the memories over which he lingers remind him of the mystery of life’s endurance, his trek into the American West becomes much more than a final journey.

    Varun whiles away his time, hopping from pub to pub, spending time with friends and keeping a track of his love interest on Facebook.These traits worry his mother to the bone, compelling her to put the very meddlesome Anu Aunty on the job, to help get her son moving in the right direction in life. Anu Aunty does a rather good job of this, much to Varun's dismay. He then does all that he can to get her off his track, while pursuing his dreams to become an entrepreneur.How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company is the author’s debut novel and is on its fourth reprint already. Having sold twenty thousand copies in only a month, the book has become a bestseller by national standards. It has also occupied a firm foothold on the bestseller charts for eighty days at a stretch. The author attained initial popularity with his Facebook blog posts, a few of which were sent to his publishers. The book was conceived once they demanded a full manuscript.

    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.

    In this tight-knit community, five girls on the cusp of womanhood-a politically driven graffiti artist; a transgender Christian convert; a blind girl who loves to dance; and the queer daughter of a hijabi union leader-forge an unbreakable bond.When the local government threatens to demolish their tin shacks in order to build a shopping mall, the girls and their mothers refuse to be erased. Together they wage war on the bulldozers sent to bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that wishes that families like them would remain hidden forever.Elegant, poetic, and vibrant, A People's History of Heaven takes a clear-eyed look at adversity and geography and dazzles in its depiction of love and female friendship.

    She is incomplete without a man,” averred Kamala Das shortly before her death in May, 2009. One of the most controversial and celebrated Indian authors, she combined in her writings rare honesty and sensitivity, provocation and poignancy. The Kept Woman and Other Stories explores the man-woman relationship in all its dimensions. Deprived, depraved, mysterious, mystical and exalted, each character, culled from experience and observation, is an incisive study of love, lust and longing.

    She is a lifeguard at the pool at the Dunes hotel in Las Vegas, caught off guard by the new attention from men and boys, not quite sure of her own footing in the world. Her mother, Kathy, suddenly finds herself in a place equally uncertain: her children getting older, her stable marriage perhaps too stable, the slow days of summer leaving her adrift. When Kathy meets Helen’s boss, the manager at the pool, her life is on the brink of a different sort of change.Following Helen and Kathy through three summers, this novel is an intimate picture of two sexual awakenings under one roof and their aftershocks on a family. The Perfect Age is set in workaday Las Vegas, where people are married at drive-through chapels, and escort services are advertised alongside 99-cent shrimp cocktail. The novel takes the reader beyond the glitz of showgirls and Elvis impersonators and reveals the everyday life in homes and schools, and among the lukewarm waters of Lake Mead and the semi-cool of the surrounding mountains. In The Perfect Age, Heather Skyler explores the nature of beauty, sex, and class divisions in a society where things are at once normal and bizarre, showing us that the validity of life’s deepest experiences—love, betrayal, acceptance—is never compromised by age.

    Set in politically charged Shillong, this interconnected collection of stories speaks of the coming-of-age of a young woman–and the city and community she calls home.

    Tiloka, Rano's husband, is murdered leaving her with four children to look after and a hostile mother-in-law to contend with. Helpful friends and the village elders decide that Mangal, Tiloka's younger brother, should offer her protection in the form of marriage. And so a wedding of reluctant partners takes place.