This is the hilarious story of Ravan, a Maratha Hindu, and Eddie, a Roman Catholic, growing up to adolescence on the different floors of the CWD chawl No 17 in Bombay in the decade immediately after independence. First published in 1994, this cult classic is now being reissued for a new generation of readers. About the Author: Kiran Nagarkar was born in Mumbai. He wrote his first book in a language in which he had never written before—Marathi. The book was called Saat Sakkam Trechalis, recently translated as Seven Sixes Are Forty-Three, and is considered a landmark in post-independence Indian literature. He is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novels Cuckold (which won the Sahitya Akademi Award), God's Little Soldier and The Extras, the sequel to Ravan and Eddie.

    Discover the principal characters of the Mahabharata and their family trees, and understand key moments from the birth of Pandavas and Kauravas to the death of the elders.Know the Mahabharata with this beautiful retelling of India's greatest epic.

    DESIRE. VENGEANCE.Aryavarta – the ancient realm of the noble.For generations, the Firstborn dynasty of scholar-sages, descendants of Vasishta Varuni and protectors of the Divine Order on earth, has dominated here. For just as long, the Angirasa family of Firewrights, weapon-makers to the kings and master inventors, has defied them. In the aftermath of the centuries-long conflict between the two orders, the once-united empire of Aryavarta lies splintered, a shadow of its former glorious self.Now, the last Secret Keeper of the Firewrights is dead, killed by a violent hand, and the battle for supreme power in the empire is about to begin.As mighty powers hurtle towards a bloody conflict, Govinda Shauri, cowherd-turned-prince and now Commander of the armies of Dwaraka, must use all his cunning to counter deception and treachery if he is to protect his people and those whom he loves.But who holds the key to the fantastic and startling knowledge of the Firewrights, which in the wrong hands will bring doom upon the empire? And does Govinda have it in him to confront the dark secrets of his past and discover the true meaning of being Arya, of being noble?

    The second city of the Empire is teeming with scandalous gossip and rumour. Abravanel Ben Obadiah Ben Aharon Kabariti, Sephardic Jew from Syria and trader in novelties such as corsets, aphrodisiacs and zebras, befriends the British officers and the local elite by day and records their escapades by night in a leather-bound journal.1950s Paris. A battered copy of the journal surfaces in a hole-in-the-wall antique shop in Montmartre.London, 2002. A phone rings in the East End, late at night, announcing a death and an inheritance: a silver lighter, a vintage motorcycle, an ancient radio and The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers.What follows is a bizarre chain of events involving eccentric zamindars, a decadent aristocrat with a passion for lady footballers, a psychic cartographer, a haunted office building and, at the centre of it all, Digital Dutta, neighbourhood historian and keeper of secrets.Inspired by the legend of the Wandering Jew, this second work of fiction from India's foremost graphic novelist is an irreverent tale of illicit sex and drunken religiosity, which unravels new riddles with each reading.

    In the first week of its sale it reached the Amazon's Number one position of Historical fiction best seller lists. War is coming... An ancient kingdom will meet a devastating new enemy. Peninsular India, fourteenth century. The Pandyan empire is at its peak, its enemies subdued and its people at peace. Having left behind his step-brother Sundar in the race to the throne, Crown Prince Veera Pandyan is set to rule from Madurai, reputed to be the richest city in the subcontinent. But invisible fractures within the kingdom threaten to destroy it, and a new enemy approaches, swifter than anyone can imagine.In Delhi, Sultan Alauddin Khilji’s trusted general, the eunuch Malik Kafur, has trained his eyes on the distant south, fabled for its riches. A slave captured by the Khiljis, Kafur is renowned for his ambition and cunning. None, not even the mighty Mongols, have defeated him – no empire can withstand the trail of destruction he leaves in his wake. And all he wants is to see Madurai on its knees, its wealth pillaged, its temples destroyed.As an ancient city combusts in flames of treachery, bloodlust and revenge, brother will battle brother, ambition will triumph over love, slaves will rise to rule, cities will be razed to dust, and the victor will be immortalized in history...Official FB pagehttps://www.facebook.com/r.venketeshOnline storesAmazon.in http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/93500...Flipkarthttp://www.flipkart.com/gods-kings-sl...

    We are introduced, in a series of beautifully imagined and crafted cameos, to the author's family, friends, and various other people who left a lasting impression on him. In other stories we revisit Bond's beloved Garhwal hills and the small towns and villages that he has returned to time and again in his fiction. Together with his well-known novella, A Flight of Pigeons (which was made into the film Junoon), which also appears in this collection, these stories once again bring Ruskin Bond's India vividly to life.

    At fourteen she is pressed into the service of the temperamental sage Durvasa who grants her a boon. Its first use, however, only brings her adversity and a shameful secret. With marriage to Pandu, Kunti dreams of a better future, but a curse makes him leave the throne of Hastinapur to his sibling, the blind Dhritarashtra, and retreat to the forest. The births of the five Pandavas rekindle Kunti’s hopes of returning to Hastinapur, but these are destroyed once again when Pandu dies suddenly. Kunti journeys to the kingdom, no longer its queen but a widow, a dependant as are her sons. She must now take up the task of guiding them through the long struggle to get their inheritance, a struggle made harder by the discovery that the illegitimate child she had abandoned long ago is alive and a sworn enemy of the Pandavas. Recasting the Mahabharata from the viewpoint of Kunti, The Kaunteyas replaces the idealized mother figure with a fully three-dimensional woman, providing new insights into the epic.

    K. Laxman. It presents a collection of some of Laxman's cartoons based on The Common Man, a character that appeared in Laxman's daily cartoon strip (titled You Said It) for the Times of India publication.The Common Man, an average man representing the hopes and fears of the masses in India, remains one of the best characters in the history of Indian cartooning and illustration. He is depicted as a silent witness to all the socio-political happenings that are presented in the cartoons.Through the Common Man cartoons, Laxman explores every aspect of living in contemporary India. From political instability to economic crises, from the deeply entrenched corruption to the woes of householders, Laxman portrays exactly what it means to live and experience the real India.The book presents some of the best cartoons featuring The Common Man in all his mute glory.This edition of The Very Best Of The Common Man was published in 2012 by Penguin India.

    Award-winning author Sudha Murty reintroduces the fascinating world of India s greatest epic through the extraordinary tales in this collection, each of which is sure to fill you with a sense of wonder and bewilderment.

    While some of them form part of the main story and are well known, there are some hidden gems scattered throughout the epic that make for insightful reading. This book contains fifty-one of these hidden gems, including the tales of: - Barbarik- Uttanka- Kartikeya- The Battle between Krishna and Arjuna- The Blinding of ShukracharyaAnd many more. Whether you're a casual reader or a die-hard fan of the Mahabharata, you will find in here tales that will delight and amaze you.

    We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth—and frailty—of their connection. At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.

    The East India Company is seeking to make inroads into the region and the local people—in particular the Abor and Mishmee tribes—fear their coming and are doing all they can to keep them out of their territories. The author takes a recorded historical event—the mysterious disappearance of a French priest, Father Nicolas Krick in the 1850s and the execution of Kajinsha from the Mishmee tribe for his murder—and woven a gripping, densely imagined work of fiction around it. And, even as the novel tells the story of an impossible journey and an elopement, it explores the themes of the lure of unknown worlds, the love people have for each other and their land and the forces of history. Gimur, a girl from the Abor tribe, runs away with Kajinsha from the Mishmee tribe, and they settle down on his land near the Tibetan border. Father Krick’s attempts to reach Tibet to set up a Jesuit mission are foiled repeatedly by the local people not because of any personal animus towards the priests or their work, but because they feel—rightly—that once the priests come, the British, with their guns and their garrisons will follow. The story revolves around events in Gimur’s and Kajinsha’s villages and is also seen from the point of view of Father Krick, a gentle, intelligent man, devout but no bigot, whose determination to reach Tibet no matter what the cost, impacts tragically on all those who encounter him.

    Five years ago, Arjun Kadam used to be a cop, a rising star in the ranks of the Mumbai Encounter Squad-an elite unit tasked by the powers-that-be to carry out extrajudicial executions of notorious gangsters. But the death of his pregnant wife at childbirth derailed his life and set him off on a spiral of depression and drug addiction, a pale shadow of his former self. When Kadam is the victim of a hit-and-run that also claims the life of a street urchin, he goes into coma for a month. Upon awakening, he finds a new sense of purpose and pursues the investigation, taking him on a journey through the deep, dark heart of Mumbai - from the glitzy tinsel of Bollywood, to the dank depths of the Mumbai Underworld, where the line between the police and the criminals has been blurred beyond recognition by his ex-colleagues on the Encounter Squad, who are now de-facto gangsters in uniform, running the very same extortion rackets they were tasked to eradicate. Obsessed with his mission, Kadam sets off a desperate gambit of deadly intrigue and deception that pits him against the very machine of violence and corruption he once helped create. “Gorgeously noir.” - Ron Marz (WITCHBLADE, ARTIFACTS, SHINKU, GREEN LANTERN) “Perfect example of noir storytelling in comics.” - GEEKADELPHIA.COM “Mohapatra's dialogue is sharp and his script is innovative, putting a clever twist on the genre. Shinde's lush and gorgeous cinematic art impresses the most, from strongly individual faces and photorealistic body language to a deep and rich range of shadows and light, water and blood. This is stylish, sophisticated, and metropolitan: a fresh entry in the noir genre with an Asian twist.” - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “It reads like a sub-continental version of SIN CITY and has all the best elements of clas

    When, in 1947, the British divided and departed their most prized imperial possession, they handed a huge, diverse, and poor society to a small nationalist elite. For decades this elite would uphold a political construct, an idea of India grounded in democracy, religious tolerance, economic development, and cultural pluralism. Sunil Khilnani investigates the fate of this idea, offering incisive portraits of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian founders and assessing the lively debates among them and their successors over who is an Indian, the meaning of modernity, and India's place in the world.In a new introduction written for this edition, Khilnani reflects on the book's striking relevance to the country's recent developments--from the rise of a new billionaire class to the election of a government with a more exclusivist conception of Indian identity. Throughout, he provokes readers and illuminates a fundamental question as urgent now as ever: Can the original idea of India survive its own successes?

    Hated and feared by many, he schemed to win the love of the beautiful goddess Parvati . . . but learned an important lesson when he invited her elephant-headed son Ganesha over for lunch one day . . . So goes one of the many delightful tales in this decidedly grown-up book of traditional Indian stories, retold for the modern reader. Author Kamla Kapur is well known in her native India as a poet and playwright, and her connection to these age-old stories is the reverent yet individualistic one we might expect from someone whose introduction tells of her hometown, where naked, dreadlocked holy men speed about on motorbikes. To collect these stories, Kapur relied on ancient sacred texts, modern scholarship, and chance encounters with interesting people who just happened to know a really good one about this time that Vishnu sank into the ocean, was incarnated as a pig, and had a really wonderful time. Like myths around the world, these are teaching stories that offer both a window into a fascinating culture that has endured for thousands of years, and a code for living that can be applied to the modern world.