Categories: Fiction

SHAKE THE BOTTLE

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Ashapurna Debi gazed into the heart of the domestic life of the Indian woman as no other writer in the world has done. In one story after another, numbering into thousands by the time she was done, she examined the imprisonment of the women within their homes and their responses to the power play, pressures and hypocrisies lying beneath the surface of the apparent solidity of the middle-class urban family. Nobody has written as relentlessly, with as much insight and yet with as light a touch, of the darkness of both the interior and the behavioural life within the four walls of the home. Over more than 70 years of a writing career, she created an extraordinary oeuvre, whose depths will be mined for generations. Twenty-one of Ashapurna Debi's most shocking stories, cherry-picked from over a thousand, have been brought together in this collection. Why these stories in particular? Each of them unravels an unexpected, even dreadful, side to the personalities of the women who feature in them. In every story, a deceptively quiet but potentially explosive act of revolt takes place or comes close to taking place. Far from the sweet and submissive stereotype of the wife/mother/daughter/woman of the house that familial structures have enforced, it is the rebellious side of the woman, often forced to emerge through cruelty, viciousness and even hatred, that stands revealed. these are scandalous stories, each one of them.

ASHWATTHAMS REDEMPTION

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Over a hundred years after the Mahabharata War, an ancient power threatens to destroy the new Age of Men, by establishing the Age of Terror of the asuras, long believed to be extinct. The only hurdle in its path is Guru Dronacharya’s son, the mighty but accursed warrior Ashwatthama, who lost all his powers following Lord Krishna’s curse, and who unwittingly finds himself drawn into the quest of the lost bow of Lord Rama—the Kodanda. As ghosts of the distant past return to haunt him, and the line between friends and enemies blurs, Ashwatthama must fight his inner demons to emerge victorious. He undertakes a perilous journey—across the vast plains of the Ganges, to the snow-capped peaks of the Himavant—where the price of failure is a fate worse than death, and death is a privilege not granted to Ashwatthama. Is this all part of Lord Krishna’s great plan? Will Ashwatthama be able to regain his lost glory?

THE ORIGINALS BLACK BEAUTY (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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If a thing is right, it can be done, and if it is wrong, it can be done without; and a good man will find a way. Black Beauty, a young colt, is raised with love and care by his benevolent master, Farmer Grey. Once he grows up to be a handsome stallion, due to a cruel twist of fate, his master is forced to sell him. Leaving his carefree days on an English farm behind, Black Beauty soon finds himself in the hands of several ruthless owners and carriage drivers in London. Battling the bitterness of his masters, he yearns to return to the freedom and comforts of his country life. Black Beauty, the autobiography of a horse, was written during the last seven years of Anna Sewell's life. A testimony to her outrage against the ill-treatment of horses in Victorian England and her empathy for animals, it remains an evergreen classic!

THE ORIGINALS THE PRINCE (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are. Niccol Machiavelli wrote The Princea book on the ruthless acquisition of power and governance of the Statewith the intention of appeasing Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of Florence, in the hope of resuscitating his political career. Often referred to as Machiavellis job application in disguise, The Prince foregrounded the contrasting aspects of virtue and vice: virtue is not always an admirable trait and vice is not always detrimental to society. He presented an unsentimental analysis of human behaviour and justified acts of immorality, deceit and deviousness to control a State. Written in 1513, shortly after Machiavelli was exiled from Florence, The Prince was posthumously published in 1532. Prohibited by the Court of Rome, The Prince was also banned by the Catholic Church. By early 1600s, William Shakespeare used Machiavel as a term to describe an unscrupulous, devious and scheming person in his works. Even today, Machiavellian means everything evil.

THE ORIGINALS THE TIME MACHINE (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning. Born out of H.G. Wells’ literary vision of the future, The Time Machine (1895) is an extraordinary work of early science fiction. A Victorian scientist builds a time machine and lands in the year 802,701 AD. Initially, he is transported to the pastoral idyll of an unknown land which is delightfully peaceful. Soon, however, the paradisiacal façade shatters and he discovers the reality of two distinct species: Eloi are useless, childlike adults surviving on a fruit based diet, and Morlocks who are barbarians thriving underground. The Time Traveller saves one of the Eloi from drowning, and navigates through tunnels to retrieve his time machine that has gone missing. Before returning to his era, The Time Traveller also visits a land where a bloated red sun stares motionless in the sky and the only sign of life is a black blob with tentacles. Once again, the scientist prepares to leave on another time travel, but this time will he return?

THE ORIGINALS HEIDI (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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Let’s enjoy the beautiful things we can see, my dear, and not think about those we cannot. A book “for children and those who love children”, Heidi (1881) is a story of an orphan girl who is sent to live with her grumpy grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The embittered grandfather who lives in seclusion, is known as ‘Uncle Alp’, and deeply resents Heidi’s arrival. But soon, he grows fond of her. Lost in the idyllic world of snow-covered mountains, Heidi befriends Peter, the goatherd, his mother, Bridget, and his blind maternal grandmother. While all seems well in Heidi’s wonderland, she is soon compelled to leave the comforts of the hills and go to Frankfurt to live with a differently-abled girl named Clara. Overcoming the initial difficulties, Heidi and Clara become friends. Amidst the grey streets of a new city, Heidi struggles to overcome her homesickness. If only she could return to the mountains. Will she ever meet her grandfather again? Written well over a century ago, Johanna Spyri’s evergreen tale of a young girl’s coming of age, of her bravery and compassion, remains a classic.

THE ORIGINALS THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel by Oscar Wilde is also his most famous work. First published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, the novel was recognised as a masterpiece decades later. Initially, it garnered negative criticism due to the undercurrents of homosexuality which hurt Victorian sensibility. In his characteristic witty fashion, Wilde conveys brilliantly the relationship between art, life and morality. Dorian Gray, a disarmingly good-looking young man, marvels at his own portrait and is resentful of the idea of the portrait remaining beautiful while he is destined to age. Thus, he makes a Faustian wish to remain young and retain his physical beauty forever whereas his portrait is to be marked with age and his moral degradation. Oscar Wilde notably defended The Picture of Dorian Gray by seeking the artist’s right to make ‘art for art’s sake’, a concept famous during Aestheticism in the latter half of the 19th century. The Picture of Dorian Gray remains influential even in the 21st century.

THE ORIGINALS THREE MEN IN A BOAT (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand. Published in 1889, Three Men In A Boat is the most widely acclaimed novel by English author Jerome K. Jerome. Jerome wrote the novel after going on a boating trip along River Thames. Intended initially to serve as a tour guide, the novel, however, was soon overtaken by the comical elements and transformed into the humorous travelogue that is a classic today. Three friends, J. (Jerome), Harris and George, are apparent hypochondriacs in need of a vacation. A two-week long boating trip, they feel, would be good for their health. Narrated by “J.”, an embodiment of Jerome K. Jerome himself, the story chronicles in the form of ramblings and digressions, the hilarious adventures and mishaps of the three friends. The novel’s success led to a sequel, Three Men On The Bummel (1900) and was adapted in several art-forms including film and theatre.

THE RAINBOW ACRES

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In the spring of 1916, seventeen-year-old Kishan Singh is euphoric in his village Noor Mahal in Punjab, British India as he dreams of going to college, landing a government job and marrying his heartthrob Roop. Summer flies in with promise but ends in disaster when heavy rains flood the fields, wrecking the cotton crop and triggering influenza which leaves behind a trail of dead villagers. Kishan Singhs dreams are ruthlessly washed away. Devastated, he sets off on a life-threatening voyage across two oceans for a distant and unknown land. On a cataclysmic day in 1919, Sophias idyllic world in Guadalajara, Mexico, falls apart when she becomes a hapless victim to the ravages of the Mexican Revolution. She battles hunger, poverty and near prostitution before embarking on a perilous night journey across the border. Will their paths cross in the land of opportunities that is overrun with racial and class barriers? The Rainbow Acres is a moving saga of migration, selfless love, fortitude, friendship, and the quest for land and identity, set against the backdrop of old Punjab, early California and revolution-torn Mexico.

THE ORIGINALS THE IDIOT (UNABRIDGED CLASSICS)

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In order to reach perfection, one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. A descendant of one of Russian nobility’s oldest families, the gentle, good natured and epileptic Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin returns to St. Petersburg after spending four years in a Swiss sanatorium. Taken to be an ‘idiot’, Prince Myshkin’s life changes drastically after he stumbles upon a photograph of Nastasya Filippovna during a visit to his distant relative General Yepanchin. Entangled in a web of love, betrayal, and murder, the Christ-like Prince Myshkin struggles to negotiate a chaotic and corrupt Russian society. Regarded as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most autobiographical work, The Idiot, as the author wrote in a letter in 1868, was meant “to depict a positively good and beautiful human being”. Through the exploration of the psychological complexities and idiosyncrasies of modern Russian society, Dostoevsky presents the life of a Russian Holy Fool in a world of moral emptiness and degradation. The Idiot remains an evergreen classic.