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The Dismantling of India: In 35 Portraits
by TJS GeorgeIn October 1947, two months after Independence, TJS George arrived in Bombay. He was nineteen years old, with a degree in English Literature. He sent out job applications––to the Air Force and to the city's English-language newspapers. Only one organization cared to reply, The Free Press Journal. The editor was known to hire anyone who asked for a job, but most new hires were sacked in a fortnight. George was put on the news desk as a sub-editor and eventually became an assistant editor. In Patna, as editor of The Searchlight, he was arrested by the chief minister for sedition. He spent three weeks in Hazaribagh Central Jail. In Hong Kong, he worked for the Far Eastern Economic Review as regional editor; in New York he was a writer for the United Nations population division; and, back in Hong Kong, in 1975, he founded Asiaweek. Six years later, he returned to India and settled in Bangalore. He began a column for Indian Express that ran without a break for twenty-five years, until 2022. His seventy-five years of journalism, concurrent with India's development as an independent nation, make for a unique understanding of events and personalities. Acclaimed for his widely historical, pan-Asian vision, George brings this far-flung experience to a compulsively readable new book, The Dismantling of India. It is the story of India told in 35 concise biographies, beginning with Jamsetji Tata and ending with Narendra Modi.
Inquilab Zindabad: A Graphic Biography of Bhagat SIngh
by Ikroop SandhuFar from the gun-toting, swaggering young man represented in pop culture, Bhagat Singh was a fearless student leader who spent his time reading, writing, debating, strategising and executing plans while working alongside his comrades. Detailing the life of a national icon, Inquilab Zindabad maps Bhagat Singh&’s journey toward revolutionising the Indian freedom struggle and the people and events that influenced this quest.While Inquilab Zindabad sheds light on his family members, friends, comrades and secret benefactors, excerpts from Bhagat Singh&’s revolutionary writings on religion, caste and freedom are also present throughout the book. Informing the reader of his astute observations on politics and revolutionary life, the lessons from his life and writings are more relevant today than ever before.
The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India
by Dinesh Singh Thakur Prashant Reddy ThikkavarapuSince 2004, when the fraud at Ranbaxy, the largest Indian pharmaceutical company at the time first came to light, the Indian pharmaceutical industry and clinical research organizations have been rocked by a series of scandals after investigations by American and European drug regulators. While the West has responded to concerns about quality of &“Made in India&” medicine by blocking exports from many Indian pharmaceutical companies, the Indian government responded not with regulatory reform but conspiracy theories about &“vested interests&” working against India. More worryingly, the Indian state has also turned a blind eye to a far more serious quality crisis in its domestic pharmaceutical market. At times, these quality issues manifest themselves in the deaths of Indian citizens as happened in early 2020 when 11 children died in Jammu because of adulterated cough syrup. On other occasions, a dodgy drug approval process has led to the Indian regulator approving sales of drugs that have never been approved by regulators in the developed markets. The result is not just poor health outcomes but outsize profits for pharmaceutical companies manufacturing medicines that have never been validated through scientifically rigorous clinical trials for therapeutic evidence. These twin crises, in both the domestic and export markets, is because India has either outdated regulations or no regulations in some areas. Even the outdated regulations are enforced with kids gloves by drug inspectors and judicial magistrates who are ready to forgive even those whose drugs are found to contain barely any active ingredient or dangerously high levels of bacterial endotoxins. In a race for growth of the pharmaceutical industry, the Indian state has sacrificed scientific rigour and ignored the basic principles of public health. Given India&’s position as the pharmacy of the developing world, the failure of the Indian state is a problem for not just India but most of the developing world. This timely, important and compelling book based on deep research, questions and analyzes the actions of the institutions that are responsible for the safety and efficacy of the Indian drug supply in the context of the historical evolution of the Drugs Act 1940 from pre-Independence India to the present day. The future of Indian public health lies in responding to the issues raised in this book.
Devi Series Durga
by Kevin MissalOne king. A group of incorrigible women. Nine nights. The demon-king, Mahisha, rules Jambudvipa with an iron fist. He wears the horns of a buffalo and has the will of a bull. With allies far and wide, his kingdom—usurped from the Aryas—is prosperous. All seems well. But Jambudvipa&’s underbelly rots. Teeming with crime, sin, and greed, the city and its people are not what they seem. Most of all, Mahisha himself. With his iron fist comes immense cruelty, horrific violence… He must be stopped. A girl wronged never forgets. Especially one made to witness her parents&’ murder. And revenge, cold and sweet, will be taken. But Durga&’s fight is far greater. And she needs allies. Luckily for her, women across professions are willing to fight the fight—a princess&’ companion, a maid, a mercenary, a pirate. Alongside her. For her. For themselves. And they have nine nights. For men and women in this ruthless world, salvation lies in this plan.
The Eastern Gate: War and Peace in Nagaland, Manipur and India's Far East
by Sudeep ChakravartiTraders, Pushers, Soldiers, Spies.A pivot for India&’s Act-East policy. The gateway to a future of immense possibilities from hydrocarbons to regional trade over land and water that could create a new Silk Route. A bulwark against China. A cradle of climate change dynamics and migration. &‘Northeast&’ India, the appellation with which India&’s far-east is known, is all this and more.Alongside hope and aspiration, it is also home to immense ethnic and communal tension, and a decades-old Naga conflict and the high-profile peace process that involves four gateway states—Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam—and several million people. It&’s among the most militarized zones in the world. It&’s a playground of corruption and engineered violence. Only real peace, and calm in both Myanmar and Bangladesh, will unlock this Eastern gate.A keen observer and frequent chronicler of the region, Sudeep Chakravarti has for several years offered exclusive insights into the Machiavellian—Chanakyan—world of the Naga and other conflicts and various attempts to resolve these. He now melds the skills of a journalist, analyst, historian and ethnographer to offer inside stories and a ringside view to the tortuous, no-holds-barred attempts at resolving conflict.Employing a &‘dispatches&’ style of storytelling, and interviews with rebel leaders, politicians, bureaucrats, policymakers, security specialists and operatives, gunrunners, &‘narcos&’, peace negotiators and community leaders, Chakravarti&’s narrative provides a definitive guide to the transition from war to peace, even as he keeps a firm gaze on the future. The Eastern Gate is a tour de force that captures this story of our times.
The Middle Finger
by Saikat MajumdarNever afraid of taking risks, Saikat Majumdar has taken his place as one the most striking novelists writing today.– SHASHI DESHPANDE In prose of spare elegance and understated precision, Saikat Majumdar explores an ethical conflict around mentorship, as well as a welter of questions around creative compromise, cultural privilege and entitlement, including the insidious pressures on poets to be &‘snarky and snappy&’. Here is a storyteller whose language is writerly yet beautifully unmannered, supple enough to combine irony with gentleness, finely-modulated observation with axiomatic ease. – ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIUM A novel of love and friendship, pleasure, pain and jealousy. – R. RAJ RAOWhat are the ethical boundaries of friendship and intimacy between a student and a teacher? Megha, a young writing lecturer in New Jersey struggles to finish her thesis and find full-time employment even as she begins to find underground fame as a poet. Restless and disenchanted, she lets her professor and friends persuade her to take up a position at a new university in Delhi. Moving continents, resettling in the city she knew as a teenager, she discovers that the university is an island of wealth and privilege, and that her mandate is to teach and train some of the key members of India&’s ruling class. But her life as a teacher is disrupted as she makes a new friend who unsettles her and asks for unexpected support. In sharp and lyrical prose, The Middle Finger tells the story of a poet grappling with questions about mentorship and belonging, disrupting boundaries set by society and the hierarchies hidden in the world of education.
The Hijab: Islam, Women and the Politics of Clothing
by PK Yasser Arafath G ArunimaHistorically, in India, we have instances of both unveiling and veiling that have been initiated by Indian Muslim women. The early 20th century saw many Muslim women joining the national movement, giving up veiling, feeling this was the only way for them to change their own, and the country's, future. Almost a hundred years later, the hijab continues to be a bone of contention in India, though in very different ways. On one hand, the rape threats that hijabi/non-hijabi women frequently encounter in the cyber world reflect the extreme desperation of the aggravated Hindutva millennials who are made to believe that unveiling Muslim women is their right while a large segment of Indian Muslim women are increasingly convinced that wearing the hijab is their constitutional prerogative. This collection of essays, primarily from India but also with a couple from Bangladesh and Iran, complicates the relationship between Muslim women and the hijab. Moving away from predictable interpretations that see the hijab merely as an instrument of Muslim women&’s oppression, the essays here, from a variety of perspectives including historical, ethnographic, and political, demonstrate that not only have Muslim women covered/ or uncovered their heads for different reasons, but the head cloth itself has had different forms depending on the region or period of history. The essays track the reasons why clothing, especially women&’s attire, is very often a site of contestation and provide ways to hear and understand the ways in which Muslim girls or women make their own sartorial choices. They also offer ways of interpreting the stakes in banning the hijab in different parts of the world, and the implications of the ban on Muslim women, the wider community and the very idea of citizenship itself.
The Mauryas: Chandragupta to Ashoka: The Backstories, The Sagas, The Legacies
by Devika RangachariFrom c. 324 BCE to c. 185 BCE, the Mauryas controlled almost the entire Indian subcontinent with efficiency and administrative finesse. Beginning with the origins of Magadha in the sixth century BCE, this definitive book on the Mauryas captures the drama, the colourful betrayals and the intrigues of the Mauryan dynasty in Magadha, starting with its enigmatic founder, Chandragupta Maurya, and his even more enigmatic mentor, Chanakya/ Kautilya, who helped him to get the throne. Chandragupta&’s son and heir, Bindusara, is an extremely shadowy, elusive figure in the historical narrative of the Mauryas. Sandwiched between his well-known father and his even more well-known son, Ashoka, Bindusara has slipped through the cracks of known history. Yet the little bits of evidence that we glean about him from varied sources suggest a ruler of power and foresight. A man of eclectic and whimsical tastes, even, who ensured that his heir would inherit a vaster empire than he did. Ashoka, Bindusara&’s son, was not only the most powerful Mauryan ruler but also one of the best-known monarchs in Indian history. There are several wildly imaginative tales that document his transition from Ashoka the Fierce to Ashoka the Contrite, consequent on the battle of Kalinga in c. 261 BCE where, horrified at the bloodshed, he underwent a radical personal and spiritual transformation and documented this fact all over his empire through inscriptions on pillars and rocks that have endured till today—a brilliant, pioneering method of communication. An incisive wit and humour makes Devika Rangachari&’s The Mauryas sparkle even when it is disentangling grave accounts of significant battles or tedious details of city planning. Culling details from secular and religious literary traditions, Graeco-Roman accounts and archaeological evidence to elucidate this lesser-known period of our ancient past, The Mauryas concludes with an analysis of the enduring legacy of this remarkable dynasty and its strong resonances in our present.
Geeta Rahman at Championship Point
by Saskya JainA young girl's fight to live her dream in a country trying to break free from its past.It's 1993 in New Delhi, the Babri Masjid demolition has just happened, and India is on the verge of opening its economy to the world. Growing up in this new, fast-changing India, Geeta is caught between her great wish — to become India's biggest badminton star — and the grief she is experiencing along with her father. Geeta Rahman at Championship Point is the story of twelve-year-old Geeta Rahman, a badminton prodigy on one hand and an aspiring servant of the Government of India on the other, she is also trying to come to terms with the recent death of her mother.In this moving and distinctively original novel, Saskya Jain brilliantly weaves the personal and the political — as Geeta&’s life within her tightly-knit community unfolds, the story of a liberalized India desperate to channel its newfound ambitions to finally silence the ghosts of Partition also comes to the fore. The answer to whether or not Geeta succeeds, and at what price, is tied to this constantly changing landscape. By using the game of badminton as a metaphor, Jain&’s inventive prose establishes a strong sense of place and meticulously explores the sense of a young girl&’s unique mindset, presenting us with an unforgettable narrator learning to find her place under the sun.
One Man, Many Lives: Bhagwan Singh and the Early South Asians in America
by Anuradha KumarTwo men, near-identical names, and their intertwined lives. On one side is Bhagwan Singh, an itinerant religious preacher, a rebel on the run, poet, writer, and even a self-help guru. On the other is Bhogwan Singh, turban-wrapper, occasional actor, and one of the first Indians in Hollywood. When one appears on historical records, the other goes off the radar. This is a story of their journeys, intersecting, meshed, and melded mysteriously with each other.Anuradha Kumar plays armchair detective as she courses through books, newspapers, pamphlets and films to uncover the trajectories of these two lives and the times they inhabited. As much as it is about Bhagwan and Bhogwan Singh, this book tells the larger and more remarkable story of how the first South Asians adapted, adjusted and remade themselves to a life in the New World.
The Blind King's Wrath
by Ashok BankerThe Blind King's Wrath brings the tumultuous Burnt Empire Trilogy to a thrilling end. Krushni, the prophesied Dark Queen, has risen in the East, determined to have her vengeance on Jarsun, her father in her past life and murderer of her mother and grandfather. She is joined in her quest by the five children of Shvate, Karni and Mayla, now grown to young adulthood, and a host of other champions all burning with righteous rage against the God Emperor.As old foes emerge and new allies reveal themselves, the stage is set for the greatest clash of all. A great war. On one side are the valiant but hopelessly outnumbered forces of justice and righteous vengeance led by Krushni and the Shvate Five. Looming against them are the brutal, demonic forces of their enemies led by Jarsun and the tyrant king Dronas.In a shocking turn, Emperor Adri despatches the vast armies of the Burnt Empire, countless tens of millions of brutally efficient killing hordes, against the brave champions. On this bloodsoaked field, the fate of the Burnt Empire will be decided once and for all.
Homeless: Growing Up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India
by K. VaishaliAfter discovering she&’s lesbian and dyslexic at 20, Vaishali begins to untangle her anxieties around reading and writing. She comes out to her mother at 22 and leaves her Bombay home to make her own way. In a dingy, insect-ridden yet rent-free hostel room in Hyderabad with a door that doesn&’t quite close, she tries to make the best of the situation by writing a book about her experiences. As she writes, she finds the past has a way of catching up with her, even as she explores her dyslexia, homosexuality, and the clitoris; falling in love and recovering from a harrowing breakup; academic failure, loneliness, and homophobia; living with sickness, anxiety, depression, and her caste, gender, and body. This is the story of Vaishali's relationship with her many truths and the truths of many young people in India.
Spirit Nights
by Easterine Kire&‘Tiger has eaten the sun!&’ screams Tola the seeress when darkness suddenly descends at midday, and the great spiritual struggle begins to restore the light.An ancient prophecy is fulfilled when darkness envelops a number of villages for days on end. The only thing they know is that a terrible taboo has been violated in the spirit world. Only by crossing the borders between the natural world and the spirit world, and acting with wisdom and courage can they get the light back, but who will dare to do that? Accounts of sudden darkness descending on the land exist in at least two tribal histories of the Naga people, the Rengma and the Chang. The story of Spirit Nights is inspired by a story of darkness narrated by the Chang Naga tribe. Names and incidents are borrowed from the original tale, but it follows the path of fiction to achieve its telling.
In the Body of a Woman: Essays on Law, Gender and Society
by Aaliya Waziri&‘From the enduring shame of the marital-rape loophole to online abuse and the horror of superstition-driven murders, Waziri&’s thoughtful collection of essays reminds us that despite our progress, it is a grim landscape for Indian women, with so much left to be done.&’ SHASHI THAROOR &‘The author brilliantly lays bare for the reader the emergent, new societal responses towards sexual attitudes and gender justice and competently captures with nuance and sensitivity the attempts of the legal system to keep pace without being overwhelmed.&’ SALMAN KHURSHID &‘An incisive and mindful analysis of gender and parity through the intersection of legal frameworks and societal perspectives. Aaliya Waziri draws upon a vast canvas to present an articulate and thoughtful case for gender-responsive lawmaking.&’ NAMITA GOKHALE From important contemporary issues like the changing landscape of marital rape laws to the inadequacy of the current cyberbullying laws, from historical milestones such as the women who helped draft the Indian constitution after Independence to examining religious laws and international obligations, Aaliya Waziri writes a deeply researched, informative and powerful book. Her attempt is to address the many questions that a lay person or even a lawyer might have about what lies at the intersection of law, gender and society.In the Body of a Woman, with its focus on gender justice, pivots on the idea that feminism is contextual. There may not be any straightjacket formula to fix all the woes of women but we can start by strengthening our institutional responses and not treat half the country&’s population as second class citizens. Occasionally acerbic yet deeply compassionate, hopeful yet sometimes despairing, Waziri doesn&’t pull her punches in these essays where she looks clinically at the judicial system but in her own unique, empathetic way that makes this book an engaging read for—it must be stressed—men and women who are interested in probing the intersection of law and gender.
Unspoken
by Sharmistha GooptuThe summer of 2024. Sixty-four-year-old Mrs G starts to reminisce about her love affair with a man she calls &‘A&’. To Aisha, her daughter, &‘A&’ appears to be a figment of her mother&’s dementia-afflicted mind. &‘Miu, there was no A. You were happily married to Boy,&’ an exasperated Aisha tells her mother. Even as it starts to seem that her mother had, for years, lived a whole other life. A life peopled by those who had together played out the obsession of love, morbid jealousy, hurt, harm and finally death. &‘Shree&’s death,&’ her mother whispers to Aisha. But how could it be? Her father had been so deeply in love with her mother and theirs was almost the perfect marriage. Who were these people that her mother now spoke about at odd hours? And the death that seemed to weigh so deeply on her mind… a death that leads Aisha to the holy city of Varanasi where people go to die.
R.A.W. Hitman: The Real Story of Agent Lima
by S. Hussain ZaidiIn September 2011, the double murder of gangsters Raju Pargai and Amit Arya rocked the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Pargai, who was well on his way to become a national security threat by smuggling weapons into India, had risen up the ranks of criminal quickly—but that also made him the target of Indian intelligence agencies, which then ordered the covert assassin named 'Agent Lima' to put him down. The day after the murder, Laxman 'Lucky' Bisht—an NSG commando who had also been the personal security officer for politicians such as L.K. Advani and then CM of Gujarat, Narendra Modi—was arrested from his home in Haldwani, accused of the double murder. Thereafter begins a tale shrouded in mystery and suspense. Was Agent Lima and Lucky Bisht one and the same person? And if they were not the same person, why did Lucky Bisht languish in prison for more than five years, being transported from jail to jail, his bail application denied, if he was working for the government?Master thriller writer S. Hussain Zaidi is back with a tale of intrigue and deceit in R.A.W. Hitman: The Real Story of Agent Lima. Based upon true events, this book will keep readers on their toes right till the end.
Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime
by Anjan SundaramAfter ten years of reporting from central Africa for The New York Times, Associated Press, and others, Anjan Sundaram finds himself living a quiet life in Shippagan, Canada, with his wife and newborn. But when word arrives of preparations for ethnic cleansing in the Central African Republic, he is suddenly torn between his duty as a husband and father, and his moral responsibility to report on a conflict unseen by the world. Soon he is traveling through the CAR, with a driver who may be a spy, bearing witness to ransacked villages and locals fleeing imminent massacre, fielding offers of mined gold and hearing stories of soldiers who steal schoolbooks for rolling paper. When he refuses to return home, journeying instead into a rebel stronghold, he learns that there is no going back to the life he left behind.Breakup illuminates the personal price that war correspondents pay as they bear witness on the frontlines of humanitarian crimes across the world. This brilliantly introspective, grounded account of one man&’s inner turmoil in the context of a dangerous journey through a warzone is sure to become a modern classic.
The Coincidence Plot
by Anil MenonOnce there was a man who believed, like the philosopher Spinoza, that all things happen for a reason. Once there was a woman who found the idea nonsensical, even repulsive. They met. Perhaps for a reason, perhaps by chance. What happens next transforms their lives and those of the people they love. Anil Menon&’s novel The Coincidence Plot weaves the tale through multiple cities, circumstances and lives. Some characters seem to be the heroes of their own lives, while others seem to serve other designs. However, they are all connected by subtle parallels and strange coincidences. This ingenious novel, by a writer of remarkable originality, addresses one of life's simplest yet hardest questions: to what extent are we truly free? Once there was a reader who picked up this novel…
Boulder
by Eva BaltasarWorking as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, a woman who gives her the nickname "Boulder." When Samsa gets a job in Reykjavik and the couple decides to move there together, Samsa decides that she wants to have a child. She is already forty and can't bear to let the opportunity pass her by. Boulder is less enthused, but doesn't know how to say no—and so finds herself dragged along on a journey that feels as thankless as it is alien. With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom can truly trump her yearning for love. Once again, Eva Baltasar demonstrates her preeminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world—and in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.
How to Fall Out of Love Madly
by Jana Casale&“Three relatable thirty somethings drive this ode to womanhood. Learning the hard way to love themselves, the women teach invaluable lessons.&”—People &“Everyone who loves Sally Rooney should be reading Jana Casale!&”—Julie Buntin, author of Marlena Three women confront the compromises they&’ve made to appease the men they love. Joy and Annie are friends and roommates whose thirty-something lives aren&’t exactly what they&’d imagined. To make ends meet, they decide to rent their extra bedroom to Theo, who charms Joy with his salt-and-pepper hair and adoration of their one-eyed cat. When Annie goes to live with her boyfriend, Theo and Joy settle into a comfortable domesticity. Then Theo brings home Celine, the girlfriend he&’s never mentioned, who is possibly the most stunning woman Joy has ever seen. Joy resolves to do whatever it takes to hold on to him, falling ever deeper into an emotional hellscape of her own making. She is too obsessed to realize that Celine&’s beauty doesn&’t protect her from pain. Haunted by an event from her past, Celine can&’t escape her shame and finds herself in an endless cycle of self-sabotage. Annie is baffled by Joy&’s senseless devotion to Theo, but she&’s consumed by her own obsessions: she can&’t stop parsing her commitment-phobic boyfriend&’s texts in an exhausting mission to maintain his approval. At work, where she fully embraces her natural assertiveness, Annie is a star. But when an anonymous letter lands on her desk accusing her esteemed and supportive boss of sexual misconduct, she is forced to decide who and what she&’s willing to stand up for. Perceptive, mordantly funny, and full of heart, How to Fall Out of Love Madly examines women&’s many relationships—with one another, their mothers, their work, men, and themselves—to reveal their underlying power and complexity. It asks, why do so many smart, compassionate, otherwise empowered women tolerate egregious behavior from the men they love? And what will it take for them to reclaim control?
Another India: Events, Memories, People
by Chandan Gowda&‘A product of immaculate scholarship, refined rumination and humane sensibility — drawing upon little known or forgotten bits of history, mythology, literature, and personal encounters with exceptional individuals, this excellent book urges us to reflect on our predicament as a people.&’ GEETANJALI SHREE &‘Another India is a metaphor for rich cultural diversity. It is a tapestry that lucidly marks the criss-crossing of intellectual currents which run through people, memories and events — between the regions and the nation, between the particular and the universal.&’ GOPAL GURU &‘This collection of essays, informed by an immersion in the texture of South Indian literary life and a vigorous humanism, provides an unusual and wonderful introduction to the diverse lineages of Indian cultural and intellectual experiences.&’ PRATAP BHANU MEHTA &‘Few books in the social sciences can connect culture, policy, politics and folklore and yet remain playful. Chandan Gowda&’s Another India represents such a cultural anthropology at its best. Effortlessly weaving the topical and the classical, and traversing the world of women Sufis, barbers, akhadas and also providing wonderful anecdotes and insights about legends like Ambedkar, Kuvempu and Lohia, this anthology is a festival of Indian diversity at its best. This is a brilliant book of insights, a book that elaborates how culture, people and creativity add to the making of the democratic imagination.&’ SHIV VISVANATHAN &‘This playful assemblage of slices of local and translocal cultures of India — including the mythic and the folk — are accompanied by glimpses into some of the country's finest minds. Together they give the book a certain charm that is matched by the author's easy, empathic, non-judgemental style.&’ ASHIS NANDY&“Ram is the perfection of the limited personality, Krishna of the exuberant personality and Siva of the non[1]dimensional personality.&” Lohia&’s elaboration of these &“categories of perfection&” is an absolute delight. During his entire career, Sir M Visversvaraya carried two pens on him, one of which belonged to the government and the other to him. He always used the former pen for office work and the latter for personal work. After possessing a devotee, a deity called Doddaswamy would start whistling with his fingers in his mouth. His devotees are to address him only through whistles. Another deity from Gulbarga district, Gajalakshmi, expected her devotees to bare all their teeth in her presence. Free ranging, delightful and erudite, Another India opens up the varied dimensions of the past, discloses the subtle facets of religious cosmologies, reveals the plurality within Hinduism and suggests ways of reengaging tradition. It shares exciting stories about lesser-known and well-known figures in our country, from Bhimavva and Mastani Maa to Gandhi and Tagore. This book brings to you the many events, thoughts and people that have been waylaid in our frequent quests for single, mainstream narratives. It brings to you the intricate cultural universe of India, where creative dissent has shaped the ethos, where rich visions and values of living together continue to hold sway in our constant striving to be a better, more just polity and society.
Be the Smarter You @ Workplace
by Rasikraman DasIn the competitive work environment today, irrespective of who you are–a start-up entrepreneur, a C-level executive, a manager or an entry-level employee–if you are unable to shape up, the only option left is to ship out! This is probably why the global corporate training industry is in high demand and is one of the fastest growing sectors with a valuation of $300 billion and growth of 8% per annum. While employees joining organisations are reasonably trained for the work, they are often not sufficiently trained for the workplace. In this book, IITian-turned-ISKCON-monk, Rasikraman Das, tries to plug in this gap with a unique blend of ethics from the ancient epics such as the Ramayana and also the Bhagavad Gita as well as techniques of successful tycoons of our times such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. He shares success hacks for crucial workplace skills such as communication, decision making, teamwork, leadership, strategic planning, change management etc. which shall make you stand out and succeed at your workplace. Each chapter comes armed with ready-to-apply models and worksheets to use the knowledge as we go along. Be the Smarter You @ Workplace is the book you need to be your best self professionally.
A Woman Burnt
by ImayamRevathi, an engineer, is besotted with Ravi, an auto driver, and marries him against her family&’s wishes. As her life unravels, we are brought face-to-face with the realities of narrow-minded, small lives, where it remains impossible for people to rise above the societal chains that shackle them. The novel explores one&’s helplessness and vulnerability in prose that is deceptively simple, it lays bare the insidious ways in which class, caste and misogyny infiltrate our lives and eat away at our humanity. Relentless and intense, most of the story unfurls in the hospital to which Revathi is brought as a burn victim. Her father, mother, brother and sister-in-law are in turns enraged, sorrowful, aggressive; her father carries around lakhs of rupees in the hope that he can use it for his daughter&’s treatment but is the money worthless now? Can it bring his daughter back to him? Imayam&’s is a voice to watch out for – he writes with clinical precision, laying threadbare the hypocrisies of family life and the society at large in a manner that spares no one and offers little redemption.
Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell: Caste as Lived Experience
by Perumal Murugan AmbaiCaste, as it is experienced in everyday life, is the pièce de résistance of this book. Thirty-two voices narrate how from childhood to adulthood, caste intruded upon their lives—food, clothes, games, gait, love, marriage and every aspect of one's existence including death. Like the editor Perumal Murugan says, caste is like god, it is omnipresent. The contributors write about the myriad ways in which they have experienced caste. It may be in the form of forgoing certain kinds of food, or eating food at secluded corners of a household, or drinking tea out of a crushed plastic cup, or drinking black coffee in a coconut shell or water poured from above into a cupped hand. Such experiences may also take the form of forbidden streets, friends disapproved of and love denied. And when one leaves behind the fear of caste while living one's life, there is still death to deal with.
Becoming Gandhi: Living the Mahatma's 6 Moral Truths in Immoral Times
by Perry GarfinkelThe fascinating and timely quest of a longtime New York Times contributor to follow Mahatma Gandhi&’s code of ethics in today&’s world. In Becoming Gandhi, veteran journalist and author Perry Garfinkel sets out on a three-year quest to examine how Gandhi&’s ideals have held up in a world beset with troubling trends. In one chilling admission, one of Gandhi&’s own grandsons tells Garfinkel that humans will always retain a degree of violence. Where does this leave modern society? &“When I despair,&” the Mahatma had said, &“I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.&” To many he was a beacon of hope, a true moral compass; to others, a divisive lightning rod for controversy. Garfinkel takes to heart one of Gandhi&’s most famous sayings―&“Be the change you want to see in the world&”―and attempts a personal transformation. Committing to practice the Mahatma&’s six main principles―truth, nonviolence, vegetarianism, simplicity, faith, and celibacy―he seeks to better himself, facing successes and failures that at times lead to self-effacing humour. Perry undertook a unique journey of self-discovery by tracing Gandhi&’s footsteps from India to England to South Africa and even American communities where Gandhi&’s spirit endures. Featuring inspiring interviews, provocative reflections, and remarkable encounters, Becoming Gandhi shares new perspectives on this pivotal figure and why his teachings are needed like never before.