The Black Hill


Mamang Dai - 2014
    The East India Company is seeking to make inroads into the region and the local people—in particular the Abor and Mishmee tribes—fear their coming and are doing all they can to keep them out of their territories. The author takes a recorded historical event—the mysterious disappearance of a French priest, Father Nicolas Krick in the 1850s and the execution of Kajinsha from the Mishmee tribe for his murder—and woven a gripping, densely imagined work of fiction around it. And, even as the novel tells the story of an impossible journey and an elopement, it explores the themes of the lure of unknown worlds, the love people have for each other and their land and the forces of history. Gimur, a girl from the Abor tribe, runs away with Kajinsha from the Mishmee tribe, and they settle down on his land near the Tibetan border. Father Krick’s attempts to reach Tibet to set up a Jesuit mission are foiled repeatedly by the local people not because of any personal animus towards the priests or their work, but because they feel—rightly—that once the priests come, the British, with their guns and their garrisons will follow. The story revolves around events in Gimur’s and Kajinsha’s villages and is also seen from the point of view of Father Krick, a gentle, intelligent man, devout but no bigot, whose determination to reach Tibet no matter what the cost, impacts tragically on all those who encounter him.

Sense and Sensibility


Kate Hamill - 2016
    Set in gossipy late 18th-century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart?

Life over Two Beers and other stories


Sanjeev Sanyal - 2018
    Written with Sanjeev's trademark flair, the stories crackle with irreverence and wit. In 'The Troll', a presumptuous blogger faces his undoing when he sets out to expose an Internet phenomenon. In the title story, a young man loses his job in the financial crisis and tries to reset his life over two beers. In 'The Intellectuals', a foreign researcher spends some memorable hours with Kolkata's ageing intellectuals. From the vicious politics of a Mumbai housing society to the snobberies of Delhi's cocktail circuit, the stories in Life over Two Beers get under the skin of a rapidly changing India-and leave you chuckling.

A Strange and Sublime Address


Amit Chaudhuri - 1991
    This novel tells the story of the atmosphere in the small house where they live. Chaudhuri writes precisely and carefully trying to capture in the rhythms of his prose the faded happiness of things, the strange, pure remembered moments

Sandeh (Marathi)


Ratnakar Matkari
    I still think so… From within we are one and the same. Sometimes he wores the mask with my name while at others I do so to fool people.’ A jeep passed by speedily and very closely. It would have brushed up. ‘They are out to kill us!’ the terror in Shreenath’s voice was unmistakable. ‘They are out to kill us! Is this some kind of game that destiny is playing with us? It wants to kill us together; both the original and the duplicate, along with their fiancées.’ Once again the jeep passed by. It symbolized a kite swooping down from high skies upon its prey. As it misses the prey it goes back to get into action. What is going to happen now? We three are set upon the journey. Where? No one knows. How long? No one knows. We are mere puppets in the hands of destiny. Ten breathtaking stories! Each one creating doubt beyond imagination while piling up the tension. Ten stories that would really create doubt! Shaded with games played by human minds these stories take us to immeasurable height and fathomless depth at the same time. Matkari has once again proved that his stories are not just entertaining or pleasing. They take us beyond that where it is impossible to comprehend. They are terribly frightful. They are mysterious. These ten stories once again prove his command over words and themes and excellent manifestation of novel ideas. They underline his authority in writing such dubious stories.

Three Plays: Our Lady of 121st Street / Jesus Hopped the A Train / In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings


Stephen Adly Guirgis - 2003
    A masterful poet of the downtrodden, his plays portray life on New York's hardscrabble streets in a manner both tender and unflinching, while continually exploring the often startling gulf between who we are and how we perceive ourselves. Gathered in this volume is his current off-Broadway hit, Our Lady of 121st Street, a comic portrait of the graduates of a Harlem Catholic school reunited at the funeral of a beloved teacher, along with his two previous plays: the philosophical jailhouse drama Jesus Hopped the A Train and In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, an Iceman Cometh for the Giuliani era that looks at the effect of Times Square's gentrification on its less desirable inhabitants.

Dark of the Moon


Howard Richardson - 1972
    The superstitious townspeople resent their happiness and their subsequent meddling ends in violence and tragedy. This play was proclaimed a Broadway hit.

Endgame


Samuel Beckett - 1957
    Endgame, originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is now considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett's characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death.

Dear Evan Hansen


Steven Levenson - 2017
    Evan is shy, lonely, and bullied for it―teeming with the irrepressible emotions all too familiar with anyone who's ever been a teenager. After a tragedy strikes, Evan's life suddenly gets turned around, but is it ultimately for the better?

Wasted


Kate Tempest - 2013
    I'm changing things. This is it.Three old friends in their mid-twenties. One remarkable day. For Ted, Danny and Charlotte, it’s time to seize control. Make a difference. Change things. This is it.A day trip through the parks and raves and cafes of South London, where life is what you make it. The rapid fire words of Kate Tempest paint a picture of lives less ordinary in an unforgiving world, sound-tracked by an exhilarating score.The drama mixes rap-style poetry delivered with microphones and self-reflexive addresses to the audience.A play about love, life and losing your mind, and the first play from one of the UK’s most exciting performance poets, Kate Tempest.

Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World


Louis de Bernières - 2001
    Taking his inspiration from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Louis de Bernières chose to celebrate his ten years of life in the south London suburb, living above a small shop that had been by turns an outlet for oversized naughty clothes for transvestites, a West Indian hairdressers and a junk shop, by writing of the people that he had known and come to love in his time there.Brilliantly capturing the myriad voices of modern Britain, with their different rhythms of speech and accents, their humour and their tragedy, jokes and gossip, de Bernières' tour de force takes us to the heart of a community and its spirit - the lives and loves, the tears and the laughter of its people.

Naked Voices: Stories And Sketches


Saadat Hasan Manto - 2008
    In one of the three sketches, which form part of this collection, the author brilliantly reveals himself to the world in a schizophrenic piece titled 'Saadat Hasan' calling 'Manto the writer' a liar, a thief and a failure! And in another titled 'In a Letter to Uncle Sam', Manto superbly couches his anti-imperialistic views in an innocent letter from a poor nephew to a capitalist and prosperous uncle in America.

Tin Fish


Sudeep Chakravarti - 2005
    Together, the 4 boys set about irreverent, sometimes hilarious rebellions against their regimented fishbowl existence at a brown-sahib institution in a turbulent, changing India.

The Dear Departed: A Comedy in One Act


Stanley Houghton - 1963
    Recreation Department twenty-fourth annual one-act play tournament, The Arts Club Players present "The Dear Departed," by Stanley Houghton, directed by Herman P. Riess.

Road


Jim Cartwright - 1986
    Moving from street corner to living room, from bedroom to kitchen, we meet the inhabitants of young, middle-aged, and old, glimpsing their socially and emotionally wretched lives, in this sharp, sad, funny, and angry play.