It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinies of these two women. We follow both families, invisibly connected until Asha's journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.Compulsively readable and deeply touching, SECRET DAUGHTER is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms.

    Economic and social conflict in a north Indian village are brilliantly captured in the story of Hori, a poor farmer and his family’s struggle for survival and self-respect. Hori does everything he can to fulfill his life’s desire: to own a cow, the peasant’s measure of wealth and well-being. Like many Hindus of his time, he believes that making the gift of a cow to a Brahman before he dies will help him achieve salvation. An engaging introduction to India before Independence, Godaan is at once village ethnography, moving human document and insightful colonial history.

    In the town live three generations of two families, one Hindu and the other Muslim, whose lives will be changed forever by the coming violence. At risk are Dada, the ageing grandfather who lovingly tends and talks to the plants on his estate; his strong-willed grandchildren, Abu and Fareeda; the newly married Devaki, who cannot fathom the forces that are turning her husband and her father into fanatics; Mariam, of the gifted hands, who kneads and pounds the fatigued muscles of tourists into submission; and Garuda, the high-school teacher who, in his own desperate way, is trying to impart the truth about the country’s history to a classroom of uninterested students. Quietly but surely, the spectre of religious intolerance is beginning to haunt the community in the guise of the Self-Respect Forum whose mission is to divide the town and destroy the delicate balance of respect and cooperation that has existed for hundreds of years. Told with brilliance, restraint and extraordinary power, Annie Zaidi’s book is destined to become a classic.

    covers partition and then life in East Punjab.

    In her story, she speaks about her struggles after her marriage, her insecurities and her pious nature that challenged her husband's growing aspirations. She narrates the rise of Ravana's power and the blunders he made that ultimately caused the downfall of Lanka.Despite her husband's faults, Mandodari loved him and advised him to follow the path of righteousness. Ravana's defeat in a thirteen-day war turned him into a villain. But what if he were the real hero on his side of the war? What if his downfall was a result of scheming to push him out of power? This is Mandodari's story.

    And about men surprised by women who are unconventional, unafraid and independent. It is the story of Meena, rebellious and unexamined, and Yuri, as complex as Meena is naive. Of Hajime, outsider to two cultures, and Prakash, unable to see beyond his limited horizons. It is also the story of Haruko who has dedicated herself to her art, and of Leela who is determined to break gender roles and learn the traditional gold-craft of her community. Set between Japan and Jaipur, Kintsugi follows the lives of these characters as they intersect and diverge, collide and break and join again in unexpected ways. The result is a brilliantly original novel as profound as it is playful, as emotionally moving as it is gripping.

    The principal narrator of the saga, which extends over six hundred years, is a bawdy, ageing reprobate who loves Delhi as much as he does the hijra whore Bhagmati - half man, half woman with sexual inventiveness and energy of both the sexes. Travelling through time, space and history to 'discover' his beloved city, the narrator meets a myriad of people-poets and princes, saints and sultans, temptresses and traitors, emperors and eunuchs - who have shaped and endowed Delhi with its very special mystique And as we accompany the narrator on his epic journey we find the city of emperors transformed and immortalized in our minds for ever.

    ‘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.

    And it does, once again, in the lawless Bihar of the 1990s...When journalist Shruti Ranjan, newly-wed wife of the Deputy Commissioner of Kishanganj in the lawless Bihar of the 1990s, is brutally raped by a ‘politically sheltered local goon’ all of her attempts at getting justice are crushed by a corrupt and complicit state government. That’s when the charismatic Sharad Malviya, a leading member of the Opposition party, offers her an unlikely solution: his party’s ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections. Left with little to choose from, Shruti agrees, only to realize that being catapulted to an enviable position of power in an all-man’s world comes at a price. Caught between her mentor and her spouse – both upright but ultimately flawed men – and a host of envious others who continue to cast aspersions on her character, she struggles to address the larger problems of the country.Taunted for being a 'Draupadi' she makes the curse her identity and resolutely fights her fate...

    In an instant, her world changes forever. Her anger at his being late turns to horror when a catastrophic gas leak poisons the city air. Anjali miraculously survives. Her marriage does not.A smart, successful schoolteacher, Anjali is now remarried to Sandeep, a loving and stable professor. Their lives would be nearly perfect, if not for their young son’s declining health. But when Anjali’s first husband suddenly reappears in her life, she is thrown back to the troubling days of their marriage with a force that impacts everyone around her.Her first husband’s return brings back all the uncertainty Anjali thought time and conviction had healed–about her decision to divorce, and about her place in a society that views her as scandalous for having walked away from her arranged marriage. As events unfold, feelings she had guarded like gold begin to leak away from her, spreading out into the world and challenging her once firm beliefs. Rich in insight into Indian culture and psychology, A Breath of Fresh Air resonates with meaning and the abiding power of love. In a landscape as intriguing as it is unfamiliar, Anjali’s struggles to reconcile the roles of wife and ex-wife, working woman and mother, illuminate both the fascinating duality of the modern Indian woman and the difficult choices all women must make.From the Hardcover edition.

    As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village ofKarnataka, Samskara serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death which stands as the central event in the plot brings in its wake aplague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readabletranslation.

    scholar, practically living in her research lab, leading an uneventful life. Amudha’s life takes an adventurous turn, when she finds a puzzle in an old Mathematics book. Surprisingly, the puzzle has nothing to do with Mathematics. Amudha embarks on a journey to solve the enigma. Every twist and turn in her journey is filled with suspense and surprises. The journey challenges and threatens Amudha. Whenever Amudha solves a part of the puzzle, a new one presents itself. Will Amudha solve the puzzle? How far does the rabbit hole go? What awaits her at the end of it? Will Amudha be the same person if she comes out of it? Read on Magic Square for answers.

    It's a story about the most explored life aspect named friendship which trapped four strange souls for life in the serenity of Delhi University (UD.U.) campus. Aniket falls victim to equally notorious life facet called love and very strangely that too, at first sight; and what follows is a restless journey of getting his love on board. Set against the backdrop of D.U. And IIT Bombay, the story reveals the dream of today's youth, their callowness, sec, love and not to forget the resolve for two critical life aspects; love & friendship. The journey took them across carousel of tough times linked to the chain of complex situations which ultimately pushed them to the brink of exploring their identity. Among this chaos and a DEADLY incident, can they realize their dreams!!! Can we live for a dream of our friends? Is love all about giving and taking nothing? Is it right to destroy oneself in love? Will these friendship win the battle of life and dream? Can we ever forget for our first love? Are the youth truly the new face of contemporary India? What will happen when dream meets fate, fate meets friendship and love cast its magic on everyone?

    It is a dark world, shot through with flashes of joy and lunacy."I used to be human once. So I'm told. I don't remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet, just like a human being..." Ever since he can remember, Animal has gone on all fours, his back twisted beyond repair by the catastrophic events of "that night" when a burning fog of poison smoke from the local factory blazed out over the town of Khaufpur, and the Apocalypse visited his slums. Now just turned seventeen and well schooled in street work, he lives by his wits, spending his days jamisponding (spying) on town officials and looking after the elderly nun who raised him, Ma Franci. His nights are spent fantasizing about Nisha, the girlfriend of the local resistance leader, and wondering what it must be like to get laid. When Elli Barber, a young American doctor, arrives in Khaufpur to open a free clinic for the still suffering townsfolk -- only to find herself struggling to convince them that she isn't there to do the dirty work of the Kampani -- Animal gets caught up in a web of intrigues, scams, and plots with the unabashed aim of turning events to his own advantage. Profane, piercingly honest, and scathingly funny, Animal's People illuminates a dark world shot through with flashes of joy and lunacy. A stunning tale of an unforgettable character, it is an unflinching look at what it means to be human: the wounds that never heal and a spirit that will not be quenched.

    Hanumarathnam, a village healer with some renown as an astrologer, has approached her parents with a marriage proposal. In keeping with custom, he provides his prospective in-laws with his horoscope. The problem is that his includes a prediction, albeit a weak one, that he will die in his tenth year of marriage. Despite the ominous horoscope, Sivakami’s parents hesitate only briefly, won over by the young man and his family’s reputation as good, upstanding Brahmins. Once married, Sivikami and Hanumarathnam grow to love one another and the bride, now in her teens, settles into a happy life. But the predictions of Hanumarathnam’s horoscope are never far from her new husband’s mind. When their first child is born, as a strategy for accurately determining his child’s astrological charts, Hanumarathnam insists the midwife toss a lemon from the window of the birthing room the moment his child appears. All is well with their first child, a daughter, Thangam, whose birth has a positive influence on her father’s astrological future. But this influence is fleeting: when a son, Vairum, is born, his horoscope confirms that his father will die within three years.Resigned to his fate, Hanumarathnam sets himself to the unpleasant task of readying his household for his imminent death. Knowing the hardships and social restrictions Sivakami will face as a Brahmin widow, he hires and trains a servant boy called Muchami to help Sivakami manage the household and properties until Vairum is of age.When Sivakami is eighteen, Hanumarathnam dies as predicted. Relentless in her adherence to the traditions that define her Brahmin caste, she shaves her head and dons the white sari of the widow. With some reluctance, she moves to her family home to raise her children under the protection of her brothers, but then realizes that they are not acting in the best interests of her children. With her daughter already married to an unreliable husband of her brothers’ choosing, and Vairum’s future also at risk, Sivakami leaves her brothers and returns to her marital home to raise her family.With the freedom to make decisions for her son’s future, Sivakami defies tradition and chooses to give him a secular education. While her choice ensures that Vairum fulfills his promise, it also sets Sivakami on a collision course with him. Vairum, fatherless in childhood, childless as an adult, rejects the caste identity that is his mother’s mainstay, twisting their fates in fascinating and unbearable ways.