Book picks similar to
शतरंज के खिलाड़ी [Shatranj ke Khiladi] by Munshi Premchand
hindi
short-stories
fiction
india
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?
Cuckold
Kiran Nagarkar - 1997
The Rajput kingdom of Mewar is at the height of its power. It is locked in war with the Sultanates of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa. But there is another deadly battle being waged within Mewar itself. who will inherit the throne after the death of the Maharana? The course of history, not just of Mewar but of the whole of India, is about to be changed forever. At the centre of Cuckold is the narrator, heir apparent of Mewar, who questions the codes, conventions and underlying assumptions of the feudal world of which he is a part, a world in which political and personal conduct are dictated by values of courage, valour and courtesy; and death is preferable to dishonour. A quintessentially Indian story, Cuckold has an immediacy and appeal that are truely universal.
The Complete Adventures of Feluda, Vol. 2
Satyajit Ray - 2003
He is at his inimitable best as he tracks down the last known letter of Napoleon, or investigates a sinister crime that has to do with Tintoretto's painting of Jesus. In The Case of Apsara Theatre, Feluda foils the insidious plans of a clever murderer, and in The House of Death, he investigates the theft of a priceless manuscript. Maganlal Meghraj, Feluda's arch-enemy, reappears in The Criminals of Kathmandu as the kingpin in a case involving spurious drugs, and again in The Mystery of the Pink Pearl, but Feluda is equal to the challenge. Also included here are the two final Feluda cases, Robertson's Ruby and The Magical Mystery, both of which were published posthumously.
Em and The Big Hoom
Jerry Pinto - 2012
Between Em, the mother, driven frequently to hospital after her failed suicide attempts, and The Big Hoom, the father, trying to hold things together as best he could, they tried to be a family.
Jasmine Days
Benyamin - 2014
She thrives in her job as a radio jockey and at home she is the darling of the family. But her happy world starts to fall apart when revolution blooms in the country. As the people's agitation gathers strength, Sameera finds herself and her family embroiled in the politics of their adopted land. She is forced to choose between family and friends, loyalty and love, life and death.Jasmine Days is the heart-rending story of a young woman in a city where the promise of revolution turns into destruction and division.
Chowringhee
Sankar - 1962
The immaculately dressed Chowringhee, radiant in her youth, had just stepped on to the floor at the nightclub.’ Set in 1950s Calcutta, Chowringhee is a sprawling saga of the intimate lives of managers, employees and guests at one of Calcutta’s largest hotels, the Shahjahan. Shankar, the newest recruit, recounts the stories of several people whose lives come together in the suites, restaurants, bar and backrooms of the hotel. As both observer and participant in the events, he inadvertently peels off the layers of everyday existence to expose the seamy underbelly of unfulfilled desires, broken dreams, callous manipulation and unbidden tragedy. What unfolds is not just the story of individual lives but also the incredible chronicle of a metropolis. Written by best-selling Bengali author Sankar, Chowringhee was published as a novel in 1962. Predating Arthur Hailey’s Hotel by three years, it became an instant hit, spawning translations in major Indian languages, a film and a play. Its larger-than-life characters—the enigmatic manager Marco Polo, the debonair receptionist Sata Bose, the tragic hostess Karabi Guha, among others—soon attained cult status. With its thinly veiled accounts of the private lives of real-life celebrities, and its sympathetic narrative seamlessly weaving the past and the present, it immediately established itself as a popular classic. Available for the first time in English, Chowringhee is as much a dirge as it is a homage to a city and its people.An excerpt (Chapter 1) from the book :http://arunavasinha.in/2011/05/27/cho...
Thanda Gosht / ٹھنڈا گوشت
سعادت حسن منٹو - 1950
Ishwar Singh, a Sikh fails to make love to his mistress. She suspects him of infidelity and In a fit of jealousy she stabs her husband with his own dagger. While dying, Ishwar Singh admits his crime of attempted rape with an unconscious Muslim girl, who was actually dead.Hence the title "Cold Flesh".
Tughlaq A Play In Thirteen Scenes
Girish Karnad - 1972
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Azadi
Arundhati Roy - 2020
Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom—a chasm or a bridge?—the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times.The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.
Raj
Gita Mehta - 1989
Raised in the thousand-year-old tradition of purdah, a strict regime of seclusion, silence, and submission, Jaya is ill-prepared to assume the role of Regent Maharani of Sirpur upon the death of her decadent, Westernized husband. But Jaya bravely fulfills her duty and soon finds herself thrust into the center of a roiling political battle in which the future of the kingdom is at stake... and her own future as well.
I Take This Woman
Rajinder Singh Bedi - 1965
Tiloka, Rano's husband, is murdered leaving her with four children to look after and a hostile mother-in-law to contend with. Helpful friends and the village elders decide that Mangal, Tiloka's younger brother, should offer her protection in the form of marriage. And so a wedding of reluctant partners takes place.
वैशाली की नगरवधू [Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu]
आचार्य चतुरसेन - 1948
Chatursen studied the whole of Jaina, Buddhist and Hindu literature to research the life and times of the central character of this novel - Ambapali, the courtesan who ruled the hearts of the rulers.Set in the Buddhist era, some 2500 years ago in the North Indian kingdom of Vaishali; this thoroughly researched novel works on two levels. On one level, it is the story of the courtesan Ambapali, who is closely linked to the powerful rulers of Vaishali; and whose beauty and clout at the royal court are legendary. Her glamourous life comes to a standstill when she learns the Buddha's path. The change in her, her spiritual awakening, her spiritual ascension, and seeking enlightenment within - these elements make the second level, the spiritual high point ofthe novel.Ambapali, compelled into courtesanship, ruled the kingdom and its ruler's heart for nearly fifty years. Her parlour was a seat of power and her life the cynosure of the kingdom's eyes. From a setting like that, she could rise above it all, shrug itall off like a dream, and discover for herself the Budda's path. Alone and unafraid.This novel is a moving spiritual journey, and a feast for the lover of literature, history and spirituality. In the words of the author, a prolific writer actively writing for forty years before producing VKN, "Main ab tak ki apni sari rachanaao ko radd karta hun, aur 'Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu' ko apni ekamaatra rachana ghoshit karta hun."Chatursen futher goes on to say that the while reading this book the reader ought to look out for a higher level in this book, which relates to spirituality and the ascension of the soul. Possibly the reader will find for himself the highest and most sublime truth of the universe; which took Chatursen ten years of the most intensive study of Jaina and Buddhist spiritual literature to discover.
The Karachi Deception
Shatrujeet Nath - 2013
However, somehow, the Inter-Services Intelligence and Dilawar always seem to be one step ahead of them, foiling every plan they make. It doesn’t take long for Major Imtiaz to realize that something is amiss—the operation has been compromised. Will he be able to successfully complete his mission, or are he and his men, like Abhimanyu, entering a trap they cannot make their way out of? Set in the world of covert operations, where double-crossing and diabolical mind games are the norm, The Karachi Deception will keep you hooked till the very end.
Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi
Pratibha Ray - 1984
Though counted among the five supremely virtuous women, honoured as pancha sati in mythology, the name Draupadi still bears stigma and is often contemptuously uttered by people in society as the woman who brought about the greatest war of all times.Pratibha Ray makes a determined effort for a balanced portrayal of the epic character and brings to the surface the broader and deeper aspects of Draupadi's mind that lay submerged in the majestic sweep of the grand Mahabharata.
A Good Indian Wife
Anne Cherian - 2008
So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grandfather, he is sure he’ll be able to resist his family’s pleas that he marry a “good” Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel’s family’s village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there’s the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.