The central characters of this play portray the modern, middle-class, Indian family: a daughter who lives inAustralia with her husband and children, a son who is a media professional, a younger daughter who is willing to marry a 'suitable' boy from the US whom she has never met, a doting mother, an ageing father rapidly losing his authority, and a loyal cook. Wedding Album operates at two levels: it explores the traditional Indian wedding in a globalized, technologically-advanced India even as it juxtaposes the very different life experiences and expectations of the family and the loyal cook. By doing this, Karnad reveals how particular notions ofwealth, well-being, sexual propriety, tradition, and modernity form the basis of middle-class society in contemporary India. This play has already been staged at numerous venues and was translated by Karnad himself from Kannada into English. An outstanding addition to OUP's corpus of plays by Girish Karnad, this volume will be of value not only to students and teachers of modern Indian drama, but also to general readers.

    He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.

    The only child of a rich businessman, Sanya hates her aimless life and grabs the chance to revisit Mumbai, where she had spent the first twelve years of her life. The main attraction is her childhood sweetheart Arth Sharma. She hopes to rekindle the love she used to feel for him as a kid. Sanya’s thrilled with the opportunity to holiday with the Sharmas. But it’s Arth’s tormenting twin Ansh who insists on spending time with her while the man of her dreams is never around. And the worst part is that her body plays traitor, lusting after the devilishly handsome Ansh. Will Sanya find relief from her bored life? And the love she came in search of? Read the book to find how destiny plays a strong role as Sanya deals with the Twin Torment in her life.

    From romantic escapes in the beaches of Goa to witnessing the beautiful Manali sky lit up with fireworks on a Diwali night, Rishi and Mishika’s lives were like an exciting roller-coaster ride every moment that they were together. But when Mishika disappears on the morning of their engagement without leaving so much as a wisp of a trace behind, Rishi finds himself alone and adrift in a dark sea of doubts and fears. Was this one of those pranks that Mishika loved to pull on him to test his love for her? Or had something happened to her? Join Rishi as he tries to look for answers in an unforgiving world where holding on to even the slightest bit of hope is a daily struggle. Will he ever find Mishika? Was she even alive? What unbelievable things would his love for her make him do? From the bestselling author of the stupid somebody comes yet another gripping story that will make you laugh, cry, and reaffirm your faith in the strength of love.About the AuthorRohit Dawesar is an author from Indore, whose debut novel, The Stupid Somebody, became a national bestseller soon after its release in 2017. Popular for his Nanotales, short stories and poems that he posts on his social media accounts and on his website, Rohit started writing when he realised that the story he had in his mind was a unique tale that needed to be told. Now a full-time writer who creates magic with his words, he also owned a coaching institute for engineering and MBA students at one point in time, was a director at Entrepreneurs Consulting Pvt. Ltd., and is also the co-founder and director of a fast-food restaurant brand named The Urban Gumti. He is a book lover and a movie and television series fanatic who will hardly say no to a cup of coffee any time.

    Of the wider issue of global politics, he reasons, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism has been a side effect. And religious intolerance places the minority communities of the country in a precarious position.They have to come to terms with a rapidly changing situation. A White Trail is an ethnographic study of these communities and the changes they are having to face. At a time when almost all accounts of religious minorities in the country focus on the persecution and discrimination they experience, A White Trail delves deeper into their lives, using the occasion of religious festivals to gain a deeper insight into the psyche of Pakistani Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Zoroastrians and Bahais. It seeks to understand, through the oral testimonies of the members of these communities, larger socio-political issues arising from the situation.A White Trail originally began as a series of newspaper articles written by Lahore - based Haroon Khalid for Pakistans widely - circulated weekly, The Friday Times.

    The simple and lively stories compel you to take a look back at your own life, and remember when you put these incidences at the back of your mind. Its not just a collection of stories and a true incident, but also a reflection of what every one of us has seen sometime or the other, in our lives. The characters come alive, time and again as people we may have met, or as a persona of our own self.Not too many works in recent years have managed to capture the nuances of ordinary, daily lives as effortlessly and fluently as Terms and Conditions Apply has done. A wonderful assortment of 13 short stories and a true incident, Whether it is highs and lows of a relationship, chaos and bedlam of school life, petty or harmless office gossips, or the buzz of a salon; all stories are strongly steeped in reality and yet they take a superb flight of fancy in the hands of a master craftsman. Rich in imagination, broad in its scope and elegant in its style, Terms and Conditions Apply is arguably one of the best debut works in recent Hindi literature.

    So she is elated to learn she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the drastic changes.Meticulously researched and beautifully written, What the Body Remembers is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual.

    In this fascinating account, Bipan Chandra traces the events that led up to this moment and makes some startling revelations. He finds that there was a real danger of the JP movement turning fascist, given the fuzzy ideology of Total Revolution, its confused leadership and dependence on the RSS for its organization. At the same time, despite the authoritarianism inherent in the Emergency, particularly with the rising power of Sanjay Gandhi and his Youth Congress brigade, Indira Gandhi did end it and call for elections.Finely argued, incisive and original, this book offers significant insight into those turbulent years and joins the ever-relevant debate on the acceptable limits of popular protest in a democracy.

    This is his second time in Mayong, in rural Assam, since 1998, when he had come for a few days to attend his father's best friend's funeral. As the wedding preparations gather pace, Pablo is amused as well as disturbed by squabbling aunts, dying grandmothers, cousins planning to elope for love and hysterical gossips. And on this heady theatre of tradition and modernity hovers the sinister shadow of insurgency and the army's brutal measures to quell militancy. In the days leading up to the wedding, which ends in an unspeakable tragedy, Pablo finds first love, discovers family intrigues and goes through an extraordinary rite of passage. Written with clinical precision, this gripping first novel announces the arrival of one of the most original voices from India's North-East.

    This is Vikram’s first case and he, along with Inspector Gopi Reddy, must solve the case even if they face opposition from the richest and powerful family in Hyderabad, who would stop at nothing to defend themselves. The Sonia Sinha Case When property developer Krishna Dhavala is stabbed to death in Necklace Road, everyone suspects Mrs. Dhavala to be the murderer of her alcoholic and abusive husband. But is that really the case? Vikram Rana and Inspector Reddy have a tough time uncovering the murderer and Vikram himself almost dies trying to solve this case. Experience the mystery along with the duo as they fight their way through the maze of lies, deceit and greed.

    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.

    These unique temples are not just places of worship, but living museums of architectural wonders, mind-boggling sculptures, graceful dances, colourful crafts and many other cultural activities. More than anything, they are treasure troves of lore and legend, teeming with tales of gods and goddesses, demons and devotees, plants and beasts, the magical and the mysterious – all just waiting to be discovered by you. Join Sudha G. Tilak as she takes you on an unusual journey to the country’s most sacred places, where the lines between fact and faith are blurred and stories come alive!

    The Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma - in essence, doing the right thing. When a hero falters, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. The epic's characters are flawed, but their incoherent experiences throw light on our familiar dilemmas. Gurcharan Das's best-selling book India Unbound examined the classical aim of artha, material well being. This, his first book in seven years, dwells on the goal of dharma, moral well being. It addresses the central problem of how to live our lives in an examined way - holding a mirror up to us and forcing us to confront the many ways in which we deceive ourselves and others. What emerges is a doctrine of dharma that we can apply to our business decisions, political strategies and interpersonal relationships - in effect, to life itself.

    The novel starts with the news of theft of an ancient idol of Goddess Saraswati from a Hoysala temple. The journalist visits the place, which incidentally happens to be his ancestral town. The canvas of the novel encompasses almost the whole of India and most of the spheres like education, communal politics, business, political corruption and destruction of traditional moral values. The novel ends with the clamping of the so-called Emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975.

    As a result of this, Salman Rashid’s family fled Jalandhar for Pakistan, the newly created country across the border.They were among the nearly two million people uprooted from their homes in the greatest transmigration in history. Besides those who fled, other members of the family became part of a grimmer statistic: they featured among the more than one million unfortunate souls who paid with their lives for the division of India and creation of Pakistan.After living in the shadow of his family’s tragedy for decades, in 2008, Rashid made the journey back to his ancestral village to uncover the truth. A Time of Madness tells the story of what he discovered with great poignancy and grace. It is a tale of unspeakable brutality but it is also a testament to the uniquely human traits of forgiveness, redemption and the resilience of the human spirit.