He attends the same private tuitions as his classmate, Shirodkar, just for a glimpse of her, and follows her back home every day. Sadly, she has not a clue that he is pining away for her, because in their society, boys and girls don't interact freely, much less talk about love. When he's not negotiating the tricky alleys of love, Mukund sits around the school field or loafs about town with his close friends, Surya, Chitre and Phawdya, railing against the education system, and debating ideas such as discipline and Bohemianism. Set in a small Maharashtrian town during the Emergency of 1975, Shala is a heart-warming, nuanced novel about the adolescent struggles that are as tortuous in real time as they are amusing in retrospect.

    The outcome of this fateful experiment, which was conceived millions of years ago by her species, now rests in her hands. As she prepares to deliver her final judgment, she comes across three young men in a sacred forest who change her life forever. These three men- a scientist, a hacker and an artist, happen to take refuge in that forest, trying to escape from the oddities of their own unfair lives. Struggling with their dreams and demons, they begin to explore the dark and paranormal behavior of the forest by forging a companionship. From the rare flora and fauna breathing alive on the ground to the deadly wide expanse of the whimsy black sky, everything they find is yet another puzzle unsolved. Little did they know that four of them hold in their hands the future of mankind and much beyond imagination, they are connected through an ancient Prophecy that was long lost in the sands of time.

    But the rain can’t stop me. No one can…I’ll go out and play tonight. I will kill only four. No more, no less. Just four.' In the midst of one of the worst monsoons in Mumbai, a man is found brutally murdered, his body posed like a kite on the tallest cell tower in the city. As one corpse after another turns up in the unlikeliest of places, each gruesomely killed and carefully arranged in a grotesque manner, the Mumbai Police realize they have more on their hands than they can deal with. Enter Chandrakant Rathod, a maverick investigator the police turn to in times of need, who plays by his own rules and lives for the thrill of the chase. Pitting his sharp instincts against the machinations of the sadistic, ruthless killer, the detective succeeds in nabbing the psychopath and putting him behind bars. Then, three months later, the killings begin again. A deadly game is afoot – a game that will challenge Rathod to the utmost, for it is a game that he cannot hope to win...

    Mounting it, he puts one foot on the pedal, the other on the threshold, and waits for Teresa. This was how he used to wait for her at the station two years ago. He used to be in love with her then… Sahitya Akademi-awardee Damodar Mauzo is one of the most prominent, prolific and feted figures in contemporary Konkani literature. His writing spans an enormous range, straddling both urban and rural geographies, and runs the gamut of human emotion—the paralyzing helplessness of the small farmer in the face of implacable nature; the eternal ebbs and flows of the man-woman relationship; and the many humiliations, small and large, of raising a differently abled child. In the title story, an ineffectual husband finally reaches his boiling point; ‘Coinsanv’s Cattle’ is a heart-breaking depiction of how a farmer couple must make the impossible choice—send their beloved animals to slaughter or face starvation; and, in the quietly humorous ‘A Writer’s Tale’, a senior author becomes the unwitting subject of a woman’s fiction. Compiled with care, and smoothly, felicitously translated by Xavier Cota, Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa brings to readers tales which are as compellingly local in their flavour as they are universal in the ideas and emotions they evoke. This volume is a must-read.

    Set to inspire, this book includes some of the most stirring and eloquent addresses by Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Mother Teresa, JRD Tata, Abdul Kalam, Nardendra Modi and other influential Indian leaders.This impelling selection of expressive moments of oratory would provide the reader a fresh perspective; evoke feelings of patriotism, inspiration and unbounded motivation. Nitin Aggarwal introduces each speech with relevant information, providing valuable insight.

    A true vagabond, Sankrityayan traveled to far lands like Russia, Korea, Japan, China and many others, where he mastered the languages of these lands and was an authority on cultural studies.The stories collectively trace the migration of Aryans from the steppes of the Eurasia to regions around the Volga river; then their movements across the Hindukush and the Himalayas and the sub-Himalayan regions; and their spread to the Indo-Gangetic plains of the subcontinent of India. The book begins in 6000 BC and ends in 1942, the year when Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader called for the quit India movement.

    K. Narayan at his best, offering enchanting tales of human absurdity that are also skillfully woven parables infused with Hindu mysticism. A Tiger for Malgudi is told from the point of view of the tiger Raja, now old and toothless, who looks back on his life in the circus and in films, and on his dramatic bid to escape the brutish human world in a quest for freedom. The Man-Eater of Malgudi is the story of Nataraj, a mild-mannered printer who stands up to Vasu, a pugnacious taxidermist, when Vasu begins to covet the beloved temple elephant for his collection.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    It is also a moving portrayal of the fallibility of love.Ambition, passion
and raw courage are Atul Malhotra’s key aides to realizing his dreams as he learns the art of gambling for high stakes. What follows is a game of treachery, infidelity and murder.The book lays bare the sordid corporate-politico nexus that compels this once middle-class boy to deftly learn the ropes and negotiate a world where dirty deals and power plays can make or break lives, where one wrong choice could be fatal.A tale of yachts and hidden Swiss accounts, sordid affairs of lust, intrigue and exhilarating highs, Nilesh Rathod’s Destiny of Shattered Dreams is also the story of innocence forever lost.

    Two lives. Three generations. Four places. Chitrangda Chatterjee, 32, has been moving from one dead-end offshore job to another. Kathputli’s story begins after Chitrangda has quit her latest job and sets out in search of the perfect story for her Great Indian Novel. This takes her to a family reunion of her grandmother’s clan, where a story of the long-lost daughter of a once-powerful Zamindar family begins to take shape.  Unravelling the mystery of Mala’s disappearance a few years after the brutal murder of the boy she loved becomes an obsession for Chitrangda. One which draws Chitrangda out of her shell; and introduces her to the unaccustomed joys of getting to know new people and places.  What emerges, however, undermines the very foundation of Chitrangda’s understanding of her own family.  The novel goes back and forth between Chitrangda’s present-day search for all the missing pieces of Mala’s story and the story itself, set in 1940s Kolkata.

    

    Hussain Zaidi, The Bard of Blood takes you on a thrilling journey from the power corridors of RAW to the war-torn terrain of Balochistan.In Delhi, ex-RAW boss Lieutenant General Sadiq Sheikh is killed by a double agent. Sadiq’s killer is a man who knows too much and is part of a diabolical plot to create what might become the Third World War.In Mumbai, literature professor Kabir Anand is settling down into his new life, when a call from the PMO thrusts him back into the world he is trying hard to forget. A brilliant agent who served under Sadiq Sheikh, Kabir has been forced to leave RAW because of a disastrous mission in Balochistan in 2006 that was undertaken as part of the Indian secret service’s covert support of the Balochi rebels against the Pakistan government. Kabir must now revisit those ghosts, avenge his mentor and face his deadliest enemies—Mullah Omar and the ISI—while racing against time to save his country.

    In this revamped version, as NDTV's transgressions have been ruled on in the courts, the reader gets a ringside view of what happens when Business colludes with Bureaucrats and Bent Politicians. How a corrupt cabal manages to keep delaying the inevitable by tying up the cases in courts. Fake narratives and honey traps to coerce and blackmail. NDTV and the owner (who is revealed in the book) have resorted to every means foul to deny the truth from coming out. A compelling read for everyone who wants to know how the system has been thoroughly corrupted and compromised in India.

    Ambedkar

    Shivaji Sawant's Mrityunjaya is an outstanding instance of such a literary masterpiece in which a contemporary Marathi novelist investigates the meaning of the bewildering skein that is life through the personae of the Mahabharata protagonists. For over two decades since its first publication the vast non- Marathi and non-Hindi readership remained deprived of this remarkable exploration of the human psyche till the publication of this English translation by the Writers workshop – a contribution for which there is much to be grateful for. Mrityunjaya is the autobiography of Karna, and yet it is not just that. With deceptive case, Sawant brings into play an exceptional stylistic innovation by combining six "dramatic soliloquies" to form the nine books of this novel of epic dimensions. Four books are spoken by Karna. These are interspersed with a book each from the lips of his unwed mother Kunti, Duryodhana (who considers Karna his mainstay), Shon (Shatruntapa, his foster-brother, who here-worships him), his wife Vrishali to whom he is like a god and, last of all, Krishna. Sawant depicts an uncanny similarity between Krishna and Karna and hints at a mystic link between them, investing his protagonist with a more-than-human aura to offset the un-heroic and even unmanly acts which mar this tremendously complex and utterly fascinating creating of Vyasa.

    Before dying of a tragic Viagra overdose, Josh's father put a stipulation in his will: Josh cannot claim his fortune unless he writes a bestselling novel in the next five years. The last thing Josh wants is a purpose in life: he's far too busy traveling, taking drugs, and growing his hair. He's very uncomfortably ensconced in a dirty Delhi flophouse, but it's the perfect place to meet drifters and druggies, users and seekers-the kind of people who know how to find Baba.