Book picks similar to
Bhava by U.R. Ananthamurthy


india
fiction
recommended-by-tim-parks
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Delhi Anti-Hindu Riots 2020, The Macabre Dance of Violence Since December 2019: An OpIndia Report


Nupur J. Sharma - 2020
    However, as is perhaps not very politically correct to point out, Islam as a religion calls Muslims to be a part of Ummah, which is to say, that all Muslims belong to the same theological ‘country’ regardless of political borders.That coupled with the intrinsic need of the Left to forever consider the Muslims as the victims, even under imaginary circumstances led to massive riots and violence in India. The perceived wrong here was that CAA left Muslims out, however, the truth was the CAA had nothing to do with Indians at all, let alone Indian Muslims.Another excuse for the rampant violence was that the proposed NRC would snatch away the citizenship of Muslims. That too, was a shameless canard. The NRC, when implemented and drafted, would be aimed to identify and deport Illegal Immigrants, and not Indian Citizens. No country in the world wantonly accepts indiscriminate influx of illegals, but the Left and Islamist nexus burnt the country because that is exactly what it expected of India.While many people wish to look at the Delhi Riots 2020 in isolation, the events that started right from the 1st December 2019 proves otherwise. It proves that the violence was a concerted effort to push Anarchy and Chaos in India. It proves that the Delhi Riots was no anti-Muslim pogrom, it was indeed, a well-oiled plan to tame ‘kafirs’.

The Golden Mongoose


Luis Fernandes - 2010
    How important is a guest who visits one's home? What could be more important than achieving knowledge through meditation? These tales taken from the Mahabharata tell of age old values that emphasize the divine status of a guest and the importance of dharma or duty above all else and teaching these lessons are simple creatures like a mongoose, a crane and a pigeon.

The Town That Laughed


Manu Bhattathiri - 2018
    The mighty black river, after which the town is named, is now no more than a trickle. People have begun to listen to weather forecasts on the radio rather than looking out of the window to see if it’s going to rain. The jackfruit tree in the middle of town has suddenly started fruiting. And, most seismic of all, Paachu Yemaan, the Inspector of Police, who has terrorized the town for decades has retired. Desperate to find him something to do, his wife, Sharada, and the good-hearted Barber Sureshan decide that ex-Inspector Paachu’s post retirement project will be the reforming of the town drunk, Joby. What the two good Samaritans haven’t counted on is the chain of extraordinary events that their project is about to set in motion.

ಚಿಗುರಿದ ಕನಸು | Chigurida Kanasu


Kota Shivarama Karanth
    Story of an Electrical Engineer, who finds rural environment more interesting than cities, finds his real interest in Farming and turns a rugged forest land into Farm with his own innovations and about his emotional journey.

Basti


Intizar Husain - 1979
    In Urdu, basti means any space, from the most intimate to the most universal, in which groups of people come together to try to live together, and the universal question at the heart of the book is how to constitute a common world. What brings people together? What tears them apart? “When the world was still all new, when the sky was fresh and the earth not yet soiled, when trees breathed through centuries and ages spoke around in the voices of birds, how astonished he was that everything was so new and yet looked so old”—so the book begins, with a mythic, even mystic, vision of harmony, as the hero, Zakir, looks back on his childhood in a subcontinent that had not yet been divided between Muslims and Hindus. But Zakir is abruptly evicted from this paradise—real or imagined—into the maelstrom of history. The new country of Pakistan is born, separating him once and for all from the woman he loves, and in a jagged and jarring sequence of scenes we witness a nation and a psyche torn into existence only to be torn apart again and again by political, religious, economic, linguistic, personal, and sexual conflicts—in effect, a world of loneliness. Zakir, whose name means “remember,” serves as the historian of this troubled place, while the ties he maintains across the years with old friends—friends who run into one another in cafés and on corners and the odd other places where history takes a time-out—suggest that the possibility of reconciliation is not simply a dream. The characters wait for a sign that minds and hearts may still meet. In the meantime, the dazzling artistry of Basti itself gives us reason to hope against hope.

An Atlas of Love: The Rupa Romance Anthology


Anuja Chauhan - 2014
    You will find yourself in the middle of a torrid liaison in The Affair , revel in the euphoria of budding romance in Just One Glance and discover what it means to let go of your loved one in The Impasse .Love can also be brutal and unconventional as The Unseen Boundaries of Love and Something about Karen will show you. But most of all, as Death of a Widower and Siddharth show, you will see that love is all about hope and taking the leap of faith.Selected from a nationwide Romance Contest conducted by Rupa Publications, this heart-warming collection of stories urges you to believe that love is eternal...and forever.

A Terrible Matriarchy


Easterine Kire - 2007
    According to Grandmother, girls didn't need an education, they didn't need love and affection or time to play or even a good piece of meat with their gravy! Naturally Dielieno hates her with a vengeance. This is the evocative tale of a young girl growing up in a traditional society in India's Northeast, which is in the midst of tremendous change. Easterine Iralu writes about a place and a people that she knows well and is a part of and brings to the storytelling a lyrical beauty which can on occasion chill the reader with its realistic portrayals of the spirits of the dead that inhabit the quiet hills and valleys of Nagaland.

The Twentieth Wife


Indu Sundaresan - 2002
    As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old -- and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known -- and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible.Shot through with wonder and suspense, The Twentieth Wife is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas


Arun Joshi - 1971
    A thought provoking novel, in which the normal and the abnormal, the ordinary and the extraordinary, illusion and reality, resignation and desire rub shoulders.

The Legend of Amrapali


Anurag Anand - 2011
    Vaishali, the capital of the Confederacy and that of the illustrious Lichchavis was not only a center of commerce and political activity but also the blessed motherland of Amrapali.The Legend of Amrapali is the story of mayhem and turmoil brought about by the obstinate desires of one man – a man blinded by the intoxication of power. It is a story of sinister plots and political wizardry, of chaste love and unbridled passion, of naked ambitions and dogged loyalties that lead to the transformation of an innocent young girl into one of the most revered, even worshipped, and occasionally feared personalities of her times. A gripping cocktail of fantasy, fiction, fable and history that retains its charismatic appeal through the centuries gone by!

The Lives of Others


Neel Mukherjee - 2014
    Each set of family members occupies a floor of the home, in accordance to their standing within the family. Poisonous rivalries between sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business threaten to unravel bonds of kinship as social unrest brews in greater Indian society. This is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider. The eldest grandchild, Supratik, compelled by his idealism, becomes dangerously involved in extremist political activism—an action that further catalyzes the decay of the Ghosh home.Ambitious, rich, and compassionate, The Lives of Others anatomizes the soul of a nation as it unfolds a family history, at the same time as it questions the nature of political action and the limits of empathy. It is a novel of unflinching power and emotional force.

Kolhyatyache por


Kishor Shantabai Kale - 2005
    Growing up in an environment where such transactions were made daily, witnessing the wretchedness of such a life at close quarters, and its repercussions on him gave Kishore the will and the determination to free himself through education and an amazing strength to transcend circumstances that at times seemed overwhelmingly black.In this book, Kishore Kale unfolds a sad and shocking story of his early years and youth with a rare simplicity and directness. Far from rancour, it instead affirms and inspires the reader to never lose hopea precept that propels Kale as today he goes about tending to prostitutes and AIDS victims doing his utmost to help those who rescued him from going under.

The Drummer Boy (Sunbird Readers Series, 14)


Cyprian Ekwensi - 1960
    But deep down, there is an undisclosed unhappiness. Why is Akin unhappy? Who, among his friends and associates, can he trust in his search for true happiness?

Ships That Pass


Shashi Deshpande - 2012
    Ships That Pass tells the story of Tara and Shaan, near strangers to each other after fourteen years of being married, and Tara's sister, Radhika, recently engaged, almost on a whim, to someone she barely knows. Even as Radhika tries to understand how a once ideal marriage has come undone, and struggles with her own feelings for an older man, tragedy strikes: Tara dies in mysterious circumstances and Shaan is arrested for murder. In the aftermath, Radhika realizes that while life may seldom turn out as expected, the only hope lies in finding the courage to take one's chances. A meditation on the nature of love and marriage, this subtle novella is vintage Shashi Deshpande. '[A] mesmerizing writer. . .you can never walk away from her stories.' About the AuthorShashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. She studied economics in Mumbai, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of eight novels, the best known of which are That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award and is considered a landmark in Indian writing in English; The Dark Holds No Terror; Small Remedies; Moving On; and The Country of Deceit.

Shoes of the Dead


Kota Neelima - 2013
    The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life’s mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides.Keyur Kashinath of the Democratic Party - first-time member of Parliament from Mityala, and son of Vaishnav Kashinath, the party’s general secretary - is the heir to his father’s power in Delhi politics. He faces his first crisis every suicide in his constituency certified by the committee as debt-related is a blot on the party’s image, and his competence.The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights for the power he has received as legacy. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes both to the limits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about ‘inherited’ democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.A book that will make you stroll through India’s corridors of power and politics with a perfect portrayal of how its consequences creep into the lives of the farmers forcing them to commit suicide. Get ready to read a gripping tale by Kota Neelima.