The Naxalbari Movement is gathering strength in Bengal. Young men and women have left their homes, picked up arms to free land from the clutches of feudal landlords and the state, and return them to oppressed landless farmers. They are being arrested en masse and thrown into high-security jails. In one such jail, five Naxals are meticulously planning a jailbreak. They must free themselves if the revolution is to continue. But petty thief Bhagoban, much too happy to serve frequent terms for free food and shelter, has been planted by Jailor Bireshwar Mukherjee among them as a mole. Only, Bhagoban seems to be warming up to them. There’s Gunpowder in the Air is a searing investigation into what deprivation and isolation can do to human idealism. And Manoranjan Byapari is perhaps the most refreshing voice to emerge from Bengal in recent times.

     From the author of 'Tell A Thousand Lies,' which was shortlisted for the 2012 Tibor Jones South Asia award. UK's Glam magazine calls 'Tell A Thousand Lies' on of their 'five favourite tales from India.' If you like Rohinton Mistry or Shilpi Somaya Gowda,you might like this short story of 40 pages.

    The stalawart foreman of the Tumbling K had come to the high country to take possession of the Firebox range. But the sight that greeted him when he arrived was an ugly one: the battle-scarred cabin and bullet-ridden body of its former owner. It was clear that young Jimmy McCracken had gone out fighting: his killers left behind a trail of blood. Now McQueen has followed that trail–straight into Pelona, a town so full of double-dealing and trickery that the truth can only be uncovered from behind the barrel of a gun . . .

    The pages of this book contain stories of every bachelor who fell in love, did stupid things and discussed India's foreign policy at the neighbourhood tea stall.'Bakar Puran' is the past, present and the future of those bachelors which will always be the same. The language and style has the realism of a bachelor pad. Here, there is no garb of elitism in expression. Whatever it is, it just is.

    Despite being part of the country's small Hindu community, that is terrorized at every opportunity by Muslim fundamentalists, they refuse to leave their country, as most of their friends and relatives have done. Sudhamoy, an atheist, believes with a naive mix of optimism and idealism that his motherland will not let him down... And then, on 6 December 1992, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in India is demolished by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists. The world condemns the incident but its fallout is felt most acutely in Bangladesh, where Muslim mobs begin to seek out and attack the Hindus... The nightmare inevitably arrives at the Duttas' doorstep - and their world begins to fall apart.

    It's okay. She's fine. She just wants to sign papers with dignity and end it all civilly.Dev is pissed. For five years, he worshiped the ground Jiya walked on. And what did he get for it? Loneliness and heartache. And while he wants to punch the wall, his beautiful wife is sitting demurely signing papers.Fate intervenes in the form of two best friends, by locking them in the very room in which they signed their divorce. What happens when two people who never stopped loving each other are forced to confront their mistakes?

    The character sketches in this collection are not only tales in the old mould, but also have the magical quality that touches upon the very essence of Life. The characters are genuinely Marathi in nature, and they have been drawn with the ease with which dawn turns into day or a bud blossoms into a flower. With innocence, Vyankatesh Madgulkar tells us about the poverty-stricken lives of the people of Mandesh and their saga of never-ending sorrows. Their tragedy is moving. The mind is filled with the thought that while men seek some happiness, their lives were never scripted to find it. This essential tragic fact is told by Madgulkar with the detachment of an artist. This renders his characters unforgettable. Our mind is disturbed every time we think of them.

    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.

    Soon they realize that life here is not just about spit and polish but six terms of adventure and achievement. It is about soaring ambition and tough challenges, a punishing regimen and endless Puttie Parades. However, rugged training and severe ragging cannot keep their spirits down for long. Weaving yarns about imaginary girlfriends, bragging about their escapades and sexual exploits, they turn from greenhorns to tough soldiers. United by their experience, these comrades-in-arms form a bond for life. Tanushree Podder, in this tongue-in-cheek saga of youth, camaraderie and growing-up, skillfully reconstructs life at NDA ? where boys become men of honour. About The Author: Eight years in the corporate sector after her MBA, Tanushree Podder decided to follow the call of her heart and quit everything to take up writing. An author of seventeen books, with two more on the editing table, she has her hands full. Boots Belts Berets is her second novel, the first one being Nurjahan's Daughter .

    Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years.

    This story takes you behind the closed and guarded gates of a military station, giving you a fat-piece of the grand and mysterious life of the Indian Army Wifes.“An Army wife is probably the only woman in the world whoknows and readily accepts that she is the mistress, because, let’sface it, the Army is the wife and the wife gets all the damnattention!” Pia is a regular, civilian girl with no connection to Army whatsoever. Then she marries Arjun, an Indian Army Officer. For Pia, regular life is a thing of the past. She is now an Army wife. From ‘just Pia’ to an Aunty, a memsaab and – her favorite words in the whole wide world – Mrs Pia Arjun Mehra. At twenty six, Pia finds herself having to suddenly be more ‘lady-like’; focus on themed ladies’ meets, high teas and welfare functions; and deal with long (unexpected) separations from her husband, extraordinary challenges, a little heartache, and, well, growing up. In the mysterious and grand world of Army wives, Pia learns that walking in high heels is okay as long as you don’t trip on combat boots. She learns that ‘civil’ is also a noun, that JCO and GOC are (very!) different, that snacks are ‘shown’ and WTF is better explained as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Yes, it really is a new world! Let this quirky, hilarious story of the first year of Pia’s Army-wife life show you that the spice to a soldier’s life is most definitely his better, very strong, bloody extremely elegant, never-cussing, witty, warm and passionate half, his Army wife.

    

    It's on India's southwestern coast, bounded by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Kaliamma River to the south and east. It's blessed with rich soil and scenic beauty, and it's been around for centuries. Of its 193,432 residents, only 89 declare themselves to be without religion or caste. And if the characters in Between the Assassinations are any indication, Kittur is an extraordinary crossroads of the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and the poets and the prophets of an India that modern literature has rarely addressed. A twelve-year-old boy named Ziauddin, a gofer at a tea shop near the railway station, is enticed into wrongdoing because a fair-skinned stranger treats him with dignity and warmth. George D'Souza, a mosquito-repellent sprayer, elevates himself to gardener and then chauffeur to the lovely, young Mrs. Gomes, and then loses it all when he attempts to be something more. A little girl's first act of love for her father is to beg on the street for money to support his drug habit. A factory owner is forced to choose between buying into underworld economics and blinding his staff or closing up shop. A privileged schoolboy, using his own ties to the Kittur underworld, sets off an explosive in a Jesuit-school classroom in protest against casteism. A childless couple takes refuge in a rapidly diminishing forest on the outskirts of town, feeding a group of "intimates" who visit only to mock them. And the loneliest member of the Marxist-Maoist Party of India falls in love with the one young woman, in the poorest part of town, whom he cannot afford to wed. Between the Assassinations showcases the most beloved aspects of Adiga's writing to brilliant effect: the class struggle rendered personal; the fury of the underdog and the fire of the iconoclast; and the prodigiously ambitious narrative talent that has earned Adiga acclaim around the world and comparisons to Gogol, Ellison, Kipling, and Palahniuk. In the words of The Guardian (London), "Between the Assassinations shows that Adiga...is one of the most important voices to emerge from India in recent years." A blinding, brilliant, and brave mosaic of Indian life as it is lived in a place called Kittur, Between the Assassinations, with all the humor, sympathy, and unflinching candor of The White Tiger, enlarges our understanding of the world we live in today.

    The novel was serialised in 1864 in a short-lived magazine published from Calcutta, but it did not appear as a book in the author's lifetime. The book soon went into oblivion. A neglected but an interesting book, its plots and characters symbolically map the birth of modern India as well as the modern Indian woman through political, cultural and social contexts. Famously known as being the writer of Vande Mataram, the national song of India, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was the first to break the dry monotony of Bengali prose and bring in a touch of informality and intimacy. The letter part of his career brought out best sellers like Kapalakundala and Krishnakanta's Will. He remains to be one of India's most celebrated writers.

    A brave hunter, Imchanok, totters when the ghost of his prey haunts him, till he offers it a tuft of his hair as a prayer for forgiveness. Pokenmong, the servant boy, by dint of his wit, sells an airfield to unsuspecting villagers. A letter found on a dead insurgent blurs the boundaries between him and an innocent villager, both struggling to make ends meet. A woman's terrible secret comes full circle, changing her daughter's and granddaughter's lives as well as her own. An illiterate village woman's simple question rattles an army officer and forces him to set her husband free. A young girl loses her lover in his fight for the motherland, leaving her a frightful legacy. And a caterpillar finds wings.From the mythical to the modern, Laburnum for My Head is a collection of short stories that embrace a gamut of emotions. Heartrending, witty and riddled with irony, the stories depict a deep understanding of the human condition.