‘What begins as a novel of ideas becomes the secret history of a nation. A superb read … both moving and inspiring.’ – JEET THAYIL
The Bharat Party has come to power in India after an intensely divisive election. Naren, a jaded Wall Street consultant, is lured by its economic mandate to return to Mumbai. With him is Amanda, eager to escape her New England town through a teaching fellowship in a Muslim-majority slum. Meanwhile, Naren’s younger brother Rohit sets out to explore his cultural roots in the country’s heartland, where he ends up befriending the fiery young men who feed off the Hindu nationalist machine.
From identity politics to corporate avarice to the limits of idealism, each of these characters embodies a hypothesis. As they come to grips with the new India, they also become aware of a deeply fraught and complex milieu. The result is an ever-widening story that builds up to a festive night when all of Mumbai is on the streets, and the simmering unrest erupts.
Devika Rege’s Quarterlife is as much a social and philosophical inquiry as a political bildungsroman. It is also a brilliantly innovative and ambitious work that tests the limits of what the novel can achieve.
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A Pallava prince travels to Cambodia to be crowned king, carrying with him secrets that will be the cause of great wars many centuries later.A Buddhist monk in ancient China treks south to India, searching for the missing pieces of a puzzle that could make his emperor all-powerful.A Neolithic tribe fights to preserve their sacred knowledge, oblivious to the war drums on the Indo-China border.Meanwhile, far away in the temple town of Kanchipuram, a reclusive scientist deciphers ancient texts even as a team of secret agents shadows his every move.Caught in the storm is a young investigator with a complex past of her own, who must race against time to maintain the balance of power in the new world.Welcome back to the exciting and shadowy world of Ashwin Sanghi, where myth and history blend into edge-of-the-seat action.
At an intersection in a city somewhere in northern India, it is an ordinary morning.
A young boy peddles pirated books; his sister, two infants by her side, offers wilted flowers to unwilling customers; an old ice-cream vendor looks forward to some extra earnings under the hot sun; at a cafe nearby, a bunch of students celebrates a graduation; a group of mechanics prepares for afternoon prayers on the pavement; local shopkeepers play loud bhajans to announce a feast for the needy; a police van idles by the roadside; a young woman in a luxury car grows impatient with her clients and their demands; and traffic that has come to a standstill slowly begins to start up ... Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changes.
As the street descends into a vortex of vengeance and retribution, the unfolding events make victims and perpetrators, observers and participants, of them all.
Searing, intense and superbly crafted, Inside Burn explores the anatomy of a spontaneous riot, exposing the absurdity of intolerance and celebrating, in the end, the core of the human spirit.
Set in Sadnahati, a Muslim-majority village in West Bengal, Talashnama is the story of Riziya, an educated and headstrong woman with an anguished past.
Hounded by a devastating secret, Riziya elopes with her tutor, Suman Nath, a Hindu, although it is Tahirul - the local Imam torn between duty and desire - who is her true love. On the day she leaves, she allegedly writes anti-Islamic graffiti on the wall of the village mosque - an incident that both baffles and enrages the villagers. Ten years later, Suman Nath takes his own life, and Riziya must return to a Sadnahati fraught with disapproval and condemnation...
Ismail Darbesh's debut novel, Talashnama, is a thrilling literary tour de force, where love, religion, modernity and politics collide. A bestseller in the original Bangla and translated brilliantly by V. Ramaswamy, it is also an evocative inquiry into the uncertainties and challenges of being Muslim in today's India.
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Divine wrath. The restless dead. Otherworldly occurrences.
The stories in Whispering Shadows will send a chill down your spine as they take you on a journey across the globe, introducing you to unforgettable characters: a young movie star grappling with a curse; a woman who risks supernatural punishment for her greed and depravity; a man haunted by guilt and something so much deadlier. These tales explore not only the unexplained and frightening, but also the dangers of what we all live with - the darker nature of the human mind.
Through captivating prose and unpredictable plotlines, Deepta Roy Chakraverti creates experiences so vivid, their echoes will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.
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Jungle Nama is Amitav Ghosh's verse adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, a tale popular in the villages of the Sundarban, which also lies at the heart of the novel The Hungry Tide. It is the story of the avaricious rich merchant Dhona, the poor lad Dukhey, and his mother; it is also the story of Dokkhin Rai, a mighty spirit who appears to humans as a tiger, of Bon Bibi, the benign goddess of the forest, and her warrior brother Shah Jongoli.
The original print version of this legend, dating back to the nineteenth century, is composed in a Bengali verse meter known as dwipodi poyar. Jungle Nama is a free adaptation of the legend, told entirely in a poyar-like meter of twenty-four syllable couplets that replicate the cadence of the original.
The first-ever book in verse by Amitav Ghosh, Jungle Nama evokes the wonder of the Sundarban through its poetry, accompanied by stunning artwork by the renowned artist Salman Toor. This is an illuminated edition of a fabulous folk tale that every book lover will want to possess.
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Gopi is lost!
As he navigates the space outside the comfort of his home, Gopi experiences life on the streets as he meets street dogs and lives their struggles. In the course of the day, Gopi befriends a kind streetie who accompanies him on his many adventures. It’s a day out like no other! But, Gopi misses his favourite Ajji every minute. Will Gopi find his way home? Will Ajji and Gopi be reunited? Read this beautiful, heartwarming story to find out!
Written in Sudha Murty’s inimitable style, this story will touch the hearts of young and old alike, as Gopi helps us understand the plight of street dogs and what we can do to help them.
The Gopi Diaries is a bestselling series for children. The first four books in the series are Coming Home, Finding Love, Growing Up and Gopi’s Day Out!
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Time is arguably our biggest enemy. And memory, perhaps, our greatest curse. Which makes forgetting the hardest thing to do.
Identical-twin rickshaw drivers are wrongly suspected of terrorism in paranoid Bombay; a Calcutta merchant envies each saree he sells for the intimacy it’ll share with the woman who buys it; an illicit love affair is conducted over nine potent text messages; a lonely astronaut sings out loud, hoping his voice will find an ear somewhere; adivasis, jawans, Naxalites, policemen and journalists in Orissa are caught in a web of violence unleashed on them by both their own histories and that of a nation helplessly repeating it.
Here are forty-nine stories that speak to the power of forgetting.
Stories of difficult pasts, and the struggle to leave them behind.
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Meet nine-year-old Shunya, an inquisitive soul who spends much of his time under his favourite peepul tree, wondering about the secrets of the universe, the purpose of life and the meaning of faith.
His quest for answers takes an unexpected twist, when he is suddenly led on a whirlwind tour to meet the eleven doppelgangers of his dad! But little does Shunya know that his dad’s peculiar research project will unravel the most bewildering mystery of his life-the significance of his name, which means ‘zero’!
Discover the magic of curiosity with the boy who has a hundred questions buzzing in his head, as he embarks on an enchanting journey through mystical tales, mind-bending beliefs and profound philosophies from some of the most beautiful faith systems in the world!
Ghouls just want to have fun!
Siliguri, a ten-year-old Bhoot, goes to a school for ghouls. He’s learning how to scare the living daylights out of humans, haunt creaky crumbly old buildings and walk with his feet turned backwards. But all he wants is to become an entertainer.
He has even enlisted Kachori’s help. Trouble is, she’s a human. A ghostbuster at that. If anyone at school finds out, it’ll be the end of him. To make matters worse, the most feared ghoul of all time is on the loose…
Will Siliguri ever have his heart’s desire? Will he delight audiences, vanquish the evil villain and save the netherworld?
Join the young Bhoot for a fa-boo-lous, ghoulastic adventure!
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