This is a place where teenage love and friendships are tested by the violence that threatens to erupt at the slightest provocation. A town that always pulls you back into its ways, no matter how cosmopolitan the city has made you.In 'Diwali in Muzaffarnagar' - Tanuj Solanki's new book of short stories after 'Neon Noon' - young men and women straddle the past and the present, the metropolis and the small town, and also the parallel needs of life: solitude and family.

    1965.  War's found himself deep in the glamorous yet lethal world of international espionage. Unhappy with both the treachery and restrictive dress-code, when a name from the past reappears in his life War realises he must risk everything to keep the world safe once again. This short story follows on from the How To Be Dead series and continues the tale of everybody's favourite grumpy Horseman of the Apocalypse...  What Amazon readers are saying about the How To Be Dead Comedy Fantasy Series: ★★★★★ “Dave Turner is a funny man and ‘How To Be Dead’ is a brilliant read.”★★★★★ “If Neil Gaiman and Simon Pegg sat down to write a story together they might come up with something like this.”★★★★★ “Hilarious and unexpectedly moving.”★★★★★ "Laughs and excitement combined!"★★★★★ “Laugh out loud funny… It’s been a while since an author has made me laugh more than Pratchett does.”★★★★★ "If you like Tom Holt, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, Dave Turner's books will fit perfectly into your collection."

    One Indian GirlHi. I’m Radhika Mehta and I’m getting married this week. I work at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Thank you for reading my story. However, let me warn you: you may not like me too much. One, I make a lot of money. Two, I have an opinion about everything. Three, I have had a boyfriend before. Okay, maybe two. Now, if I was a man, one might be cool with it. But since I am a girl, these three things I mentioned don’t really make me too likeable, do they? Half Girlfriend Once upon a time, there was a Bihari boy called Madhav. He fell in love with a rich girl from Delhi called Riya. Madhav didn’t speak English well. Riya did. Madhav wanted a relationship. Riya didn’t. Riya just wanted friendship. Madhav didn’t. Riya suggested a compromise. She agreed to be his half-girlfriend. From the bestselling author Chetan Bhagat comes a simple and beautiful love story that will touch your heart and inspire you to chase your dreams. Revolution 2020 Revolution 2020 is the story of three childhood friends, Gopal, Raghav and Aarti, who struggle to find love, happiness and success in Varanasi, none of which is easily attainable in a society that favors unfairness and corruption. Gopal gives into the system, Ravi continues to fight it. Who will win? 2 States: The Story of My Marriage Welcome to 2 States, the story of Krish and Ananya, who are from two different states of India, deeply in love with each other and want to get married. Of course, their parents don't agree. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple has a tough battle ahead of them; for it is easy to fight and rebel, but harder to convince. Will they make it? From the bestselling author Chetan Bhagat comes another witty tale about inter-community marriages in modern India. The 3 Mistakes of My Life In late 2000, a young boy in Ahmedabad dreams of owning a business. To accommodate his friends’ passion, he opens a cricket shop. However, nothing comes easy in a turbulent city. To realize their goals, they will have to face it all religious politics, calamities, unacceptable love and, above all, their own mistakes. Will they make it? Can an individual’s dreams overcome the nightmares of real life? Can we succeed despite mistakes? One Night @ the Call Center In the winter of 2004, a writer meets a young girl on an overnight train journey. To pass the time, she offers to tell him a story. However, she has one condition: that he make it his second book. The writer hesitates, but asks what the story is about. The girl replies that the story is about six people working in a call center one night. It was the night they got a phone call. A phone call from God. One Night @ the Call Center is the second of bestselling author Chetan Bhagat’s novels. Five Point Someone This is not a book that will teach you how to get into IIT or even survive it. In fact, it describes how bad things can get if you don't think straight. Funny, dark and entertaining, Five Point Someone is the story of three friends whose measly five point something GPAs come in the way of everything their friendships, their love life, their future. Will they make it?

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Their honeymoon plans go puff as India announces a nationwide lockdown.Months after living under the pressures of joint family, social distancing rules, and work-from-home stress, they get an opportunity to venture out. Viraj plans a trip to the inviting Green Villa for an intimate weekend getaway. But something is lurking beneath the surface.Will it pan out to be the exciting honeymoon that Viraj thinks they desperately need?What is Jhanak scared about?Who is the girl in the Green Villa?Key highlights of the story:• Fast-paced narration• Non-linear storytelling• Interesting twists and turns• Flavours of the supernatural• Imminent dread, doom, and deceit

    A dark ritual turns a woman obsessed with supernatural powers against the people who love her most. A possessed TV proves that old B-Movie monsters can still terrify an unsuspecting audience…Scare Street’s roster of authors brings you eleven new tales of supernatural horror, in one blood-chilling volume. This macabre collection of short stories is guaranteed to get your pulse racing, and send shivers down your spine.Each deliciously dark tale will haunt your dreams, and keep you reading long past the witching hour. But wait…What was that noise? Did something move in the shadows?Just keep telling yourself… it’s only a story.

    

    Akbar's amazing story of three generations of a Muslim family —based on his own—and how they deal with the fluctuating contours of Hindu-Muslim relations. Telinipara, a small jute mill town some 30 miles north of Kolkata along the Hooghly, is a complex Rubik's Cube of migrant Bihari workers, Hindus and Muslims; Bengalis poor and 'bhadralok'; and Sahibs who live in the safe, 'foreign' world of the Victoria Jute Mill. Into this scattered inhabitation enters a child on the verge of starvation, Prayaag, who is saved and adopted by a Muslim family, converts to Islam and takes on the name of Rahmatullah. As Rahmatullah knits Telinipara into a community, friendship, love trust and faith are continually tested by the cancer of riots. Incidents—conversion, circumcision, the arrival of the plague of electricity—and a fascinating array of characters: the ultimate Brahmin, Rahmatullah's friend Girija Maharaj; the worker's leader, Bauna Sardar; the storyteller, Talat Mian; the poet-teacher, Syed Ashfaque; the smiling mendicant, Burha Deewana; the sincere Sahib, Simon Hogg; and then the questioning, demanding third generation of the author and his friend Kamala, interlink into a narrative of social history as well as a powerful memoir. Blood Brothers is a chronicle of its age, its canvas as enchanting as its narrative, a personal journey through change as tensions build, stretching the bonds of a lifetime to breaking point and demanding, in the end, the greatest sacrifice. Its last chapters, written in a bare-bones, unemotional style, are the most moving as the author searches for hope amid raw wounds with a surgeon's scalpel.

    One day, their paths cross and their destinies are forever changed.Thirteen year old Aryan Khosla has no friends, rarely meets his busy and quarrelling parents, and is tormented by a gang of school bullies. He feels his birth was a mistake and thinks no one would notice if he disappeared from this world.Thirty-three year old Ria Marathe, a successful scriptwriter, lost her husband and only son in a terrible accident, and later came to know her childhood sweetheart husband was cheating on her for a long time. Faced with a lifetime of misery, she has decided to commit suicide.Sixty-three year old Rana Rathod, a long forgotten author, has carelessly lived off the trust created by his wealthy family and feels betrayed by his two children who sided with his wife during their brutal divorce thirty years back. He fears he is going to die a bitter man.Will Aryan lose his childhood to his loneliness? Will Ria lose her life to her tragedy? Will Rana lose his dignity to his past sins?Circle of Three is about finding a new beginning in life, of forgiving and ultimately, finding hope.

    In ‘Cora Lee is Stupid’ a young girl takes vengeance on an abusive older sister. In ‘Dead Weight’ three bank robbers get more than they bargained for during their getaway. In ‘Rosetta Stone’ a bitter young man comes face to face with the end of the world.

    A short story on forbidden love

    Weaving tales of India and of the new settlers in America, Chitra Divakaruni's stories explore themes of solitude, expectations, love and betrayal, as well as other reflections on life in both the East and the West.

    Accustomed to tracking down missing pets and cheating lovers, he is about to have his world change completely when a new case requires him to tail actress Shailaja Kapoor. What seems like a simple request turns into a dramatic dive into her murky past, wading through which is not going to be easy. Or safe. Soon Prachand and his wife, and partner against crime, Vidya, fall under the glare of the police as Shailaja Kapoor is abducted right before their eyes. Now he must put his skills to the test before they become victims at the end of a dark and dangerous game.

    Until one December dawn, when the ducks and the little duck girl, not so little any more, return to the village after several years of absence and light up Maash's life again.The year is 2019, the Indian Parliament has passed the Citizenship Amendment Act and the question of identity-- especially religious identity--is at the forefront of everything. Suddenly, everyone wants to know: who is this duck girl, where does she come from, who does she pray to? In a matter of days, Maash finds himself in the middle of a conflict he couldn't have foreseen.Set in Kaikurussi - the near idyllic village which Anita Nair introduced to readers worldwide in her first novel The Better Man, The Little Duck Girl is a state-of-the-nation story that sensitively but unflinchingly explores the idea of who we are as a people.

    Naked Pueblo, his absolutely maximalist, throw-everything-in-and-shake-it-up short story collection, buzzes like some kind of whacked-out fever dream." (Esquire)