Book picks similar to
City of Incident - A Novel in Twelve Parts by Annie Zaidi
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No God In Sight
Altaf Tyrewala - 2005
As the reader is hurtled from monologue to short story to anecdote, disparate lives collide in tantalizing ways. A family flees religious persecution in their village to take refuge in an urban slum; women walk the tightrope of free will and dormant violence; a father and son grant each other the relief of estrangement; and young men and women struggle to comprehend the consequences of sexual attraction. At the heart of the action is the city itself: a teeming, breathing, suffering Bombay that demands subservience and total surrender before it will sanction survival. Insightful, ironic, and scathingly honest, No God in Sight is a brilliant debut by a talented young writer.
Gora
Rabindranath TagoreJanko Moder - 1910
The story reflects the social, political and religious scene in Bengal at the turn of the century. The forces that were operating in Bengal at that time were one of the intense nationalism and revival of ancient spiritual values and also that of liberal western thought. What makes Gora a great prose epic is not only its social content but also its brilliant story of self-searching, of resolution, of conflicts and of self discovery.
Such a Long Journey
Rohinton Mistry - 1991
A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his father’s ambitions for him. He is the one reasonable voice amidst the ongoing dramas of his neighbours. One day, he receives a letter from an old friend, asking him to help in what at first seems like an heroic mission. But he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous network of deception. Compassionate, and rich in details of character and place, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Ladies Coupé
Anita Nair - 2001
In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car - the 'Ladies Coupe' - Akhila asks the five women the question that has been haunting her all her adult life: can a woman stay single and be happy, or does she need a man to feel complete?This wonderfully atmospheric, deliciously warm novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with hunsbands, mothers, friends, employers and children are the same world over.
Nailed
Staci Hart - 2015
Maybe it's for a stranger. It might be someone you've only just noticed, or someone whom you've known, but aren't allowed to want. Maybe you just don't know if they're affected by you, if the sound of their voice or the way they touch your hand makes them as crazy as it makes you. Or, perhaps they want you just as badly as you want them. Sometimes, it's all you can do to stop yourself from acting on it.#getnailed with these erotic shorts, coming 2015.
Max Under the Stars
Theresa Weir - 2010
Follow Max on his lifelong quest to produce the perfect novel. Touching, irreverent, hilarious and sad. Every writer should read this story. Every writer will relate to Max. please note: This is a SHORT STORY consisting of 2,500 words.
Spies, Lies & Red Tape: A Spy-Military-Political Fiction Thriller based on the Indian Subcontinent
Amit Bagaria - 2019
How could their Prime Minister speak to them like that? How does the Constitution of India allow such people, with just 35 seats out of 543 in the Lok Sabha, to become the PM?The Indian PM's aircraft took off from Islamabad Airport at 7:45 am IST and was scheduled to land at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi at 9:10 am IST. When the aircraft started deviating from its scheduled route, there was panic at the IGIA air traffic control tower. By 9:15 am IST, the aircraft was seen heading south, when it became out of range of the radars at IGIA. Had the PM's aircraft been hijacked? Was it headed to Sri Lanka or the Maldives?The defence minister, external affairs minister and the NSA had accompanied the PM to Islamabad. In their absence, the best men to contact the Indian Air Force Chief were the cabinet secretary or the defence secretary. Both men tried to get hold of him, but to no avail. He was not answering his office or mobile phone. They tried the Vice Chief and got no response either. What in hell was going on?By 9:45 am IST, Indian Army soldiers in battle gear began arriving in army trucks at North and South Block, and at various other ministry buildings spread across Lutyens' Delhi. Hundreds of soldiers also arrived at the residences of the union ministers in the 28.7 km2 Lutyens Bungalow Zone.At 9:45 pm Pakistan Time, about five hours after the Indian generals had finished the press conference in New Delhi and about two hours after millions had started demonstrating on roads across fifty-plus Indian cities, Prime Minister Irfan Khan chaired a meeting of Pakistan's National Security Council. A plan of action was framed.
The Colours of Passion: Unravelling Dark Secrets behind the Limelight
Sourabh Mukherjee - 2017
As ACP Agni Mitra investigates into the high-profile murder, he meets Neha Awasthi, with whom Manav broke his engagement to marry Hiya, Neha’s father Deepak Awasthi, who was eyeing business benefits through the alliance, Mayank Kapoor, an alcoholic model and Rituja Bose, the diva who had reigned over Tollywood over the past decade. When two more murders connected with the case make headlines, it’s time for Agni to find answers to perplexing questions and unveil shocking truths. The Colours of Passion breezes through Kolkata’s glamorous world of industrialists, movie stars, models and fashion designers laced with drug addiction and illicit liaisons, with a heart-wrenching tragedy at its core.
Murderous Greed
Arun K. Nair - 2017
The very same morning, Karthik, an up and coming young businessman is found shot dead in his car in the middle of the road — the only witness to the incident being his employee Drishti who was in the car with him at the time. The responsibility of getting behind the root of both incidents falls on Inspector Satyajit, an intrepid and honest police officer, and his team who get cracking on both cases immediately. But as the investigation proceeds further, the incidents and the stories of those involved get increasingly confused and murkier. What illegal deals was Karthik involved in? Did these deals cause his untimely death? How is all this connected to the housewife who was killed the same morning? What is the part played by the mysterious Gun Club in all these events? Follow Satyajit as he attempts to uncover these dubious questions.
Famous Short Stories from PREM CHAND
Munshi Premchand - 2005
24 stories
Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT
Chetan Bhagat - 2004
In fact, it describes how screwed up things can get if you don’t think straight.”Three hostelmates – Alok, Hari and Ryan get off to a bad start in IIT – they screw up the first class quiz. And while they try to make amends, things only get worse. It takes them a while to realize: If you try and screw with the IIT system, it comes back to double screw you. Before they know it, they are at the lowest echelons of IIT society. They have a five-point-something GPA out of ten, ranking near the end of their class. This GPA is a tattoo that will remain with them, and come in the way of anything else that matters – their friendship, their future, their love life. While the world expects IITians to conquer the world, these guys are struggling to survive.Will they make it? Do under performers have a right to live? Can they show that they are not just a five-point-somebody but a five-point-someone?
Kamby Bolongo Mean River
Robert Lopez - 2009
His only link to the outside world is a telephone that will not dial out. During the occasional calls he receives, usually wrong numbers, the narrator remembers his former life growing up in Injury, Alaska with his Mother, an often unemployed single parent, and his older brother, Charlie, a sometime boxer, sometime actor. Throughout the course of this extraordinary novel, the unwilling captive draws his life-story in stickfigures on the walls. From the difficulty of his birth, to his sickly childhood, to adventures with his brother, the narrator depicts his crazy life, which is at once fascinating and heartbreaking. The one memory that haunts him is that of watching a movie about slaves on television and how that one slave, the one for whom Kamby Bolongo Mean River meant freedom, would never relinquish the idea of returning home.
The Srinagar conspiracy
Vikram A. Chandra - 2000
Based on the present political situation in Kashmir valley.
Twilight in Delhi
Ahmed Ali - 1940
As Bonamy Dobree said, "It releases us into a different and quite complete world. Mr. Ahmed Ali makes us hear and smell Delhi...hear the flutter of pigeons’ wings, the cries of itinerant vendors, the calls to prayer, the howls of mourners, the chants of qawwals, smell jasmine and sewage, frying ghee and burning wood." The detail, as E.M. Forster said, is "new and fascinating," poetic and brutal, delightful and callous. First published by the Hogarth Press in 1940. Twilight in Delhi was widely acclaimed by critics and hailed in India as a major literary event. Long since considered a landmark novel, it is now available in the U.S. as a New Directions Classic. Twilight in Delhi has also been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Urdu.
In the Convent of Little Flowers: Stories
Indu Sundaresan - 2008
Unbeknownst to her, the nun is her biological mother's sister. The grandmother of an Indian journalist begs him to intervene with her husband his grandfather to prevent a young widow from being burned alive. A child born out of wedlock to the sixteen-year-old daughter of a peon on an engineering college campus throws the entire family into turmoil.With the lush prose, vividly rendered settings, complex and appealing characters, and compelling narratives, the stories that comprise In the Convent of Little Flowers illuminate the lives of Indians at home and abroad today, where modernity offers them opportunities that their grandmothers only dreamed of, while others experience just as much oppression as ever. Indu Sundaresan brings together stories that both embrace and reject modern values with an authenticity that only a writer of her caliber could do.