क्रिकेट का खेल बल्ले और गेंद की लड़ाई है। इस लड़ाई में कुछ सूरमा होते हैं, जो विरोधी टीम का पहला वार झेलते हैं। इन्हीं सूरमाओं को ओपनर्स या प्रचलित भाषा में सलामी बल्लेबाज कहा जाता है। सलामी बल्लेबाज को अपनी टीम को अच्छी शुरुआत दिलानी होती है। वो भी तब जबकि वो पिच, नई गेंद के साथ हवा के बर्ताव से बिलकुल बेख़बर होता है। गेंदबाज़ के पास हमेशा गलती को सुधारने का दूसरा मौका होता है, बल्लेबाज के पास नहीं। इसके बावजूद क्रिकेट इतिहास में ऐसे दिग्गज ओपनर्स हुए हैं, जिन्हें दुनिया सलाम करती है। ओपनर्स‘ क्रिकेट इतिहास के 5 ऐसे ही दृढ़ संकल्प वाले सैनिकों यानी सलामी बल्लेबाज़ों की कहानी है। जैफरी बायकॉट, गॉर्डन ग्रीनिज, श्रीकांत, डेविड बून, जयसूर्या, मैथ्यू हेडेन, सौरव गांगुली, आमिर सोहेल, वीरेंद्र सहवाग समेत 25 अंतरराष्ट्रीय सलामी बल्लेबाज़ों को इस किताब का हिस्सा बनाया गया है।
Archives: Books
People-Powered Startups
People-Powered Start-Ups is an essential handbook for start-up founders and HR professionals to build thriving organizations by providing actionable strategies and insights for navigating the complexities of managing people in this dynamic environment. The book covers a wide range of topics, including:
• Redefining HR as a strategic growth engine
• Attracting and retaining top talent in a competitive market
• Building a strong employer brand and culture
• Implementing effective performance management systems
• Fostering diversity, equity and inclusion
• Prioritizing employee well-being and mental health
Brick by Brick
In this transformative book, serial entrepreneur and leading digital venture builder in India Manish Vij chronicles his journey from modest beginnings to the heights of entrepreneurial success with disarming honesty. The story of outpacing circumstances unfolds through the launch of Kabadibazaar.com from a college hostel room and continues through the launch of Quasar, India’s leading digital media agency, SVG Media, a pioneering adtech company, and Letsbuy.com, a prominent e-commerce platform.
Brick by painstaking brick, we witness the dizzying heights of large funding rounds and the exits of these businesses to WPP, Dentsu and Flipkart, respectively, all the while having a ringside view of the mistakes he makes along the way. An unfettered story, written from the heart, Brick by Brick offers actionable insights to aspiring entrepreneurs and asks them to DARE—Dream, take relentless Action, build lasting Relationships and be open to making the most of the serendipitous Edge that life has to offer you.
A never-before-seen view from the entrepreneurial trenches, this book will hook you and propel you to ditch the excuses and make your dreams come true.
An Autobiography
True Story of a Writer, a Philosopher and a Shape-shifter
Is it possible to possess a portable, lightweight (say 400 grams), user-friendly soul with a twenty-four-hour battery life?
WELCOME TO LORD SPIDER’S WORLD OF MARVELOUS LIES
Lord Spider, celebrated author of popular fiction; J.L. Pillai, eminent executioner and voyeur; Rosi, Spider’s wife and freelance philosopher. When they get together to write an essay on ‘Compassion’ for the revolutionary party, the art of lying reaches its outrageous zenith. So does story-telling.
Spider’s world is a novel in brilliant, irresistible free fall.
History Unpacked: The Why, When and What of Ancient India
Does history leave you scratching your head? Does the endless parade of kings, battles and dates make you yawn?
Well then, this is the book to change that! It is full of amazing, often hilarious and sometimes baffling stories from ancient India. From the Stone Age to the Golden Age, India’s past is full of interesting people, mad antics and unbelievable connections. From central Asia to Kanyakumari and ancient Rome to southeast Asia—ancient India was linked with the world in ways you wouldn’t expect!
With quizzes, timelines and maps, and laugh-out-loud funny cartoons—the book truly unpacks ancient Indian history and tells you what we know about names, places (as far as we can decipher inscriptions), events and motives (as far as we can figure out!) and of course the strange things that humans do, whether back then or now.
Official Workbook: Stop Overthinking
Stop Overthinking Workbook: Break Free from Anxiety and Reclaim Your Peace
Overthinking is often the root cause of unhappiness, trapping you in a relentless cycle of worry and self-doubt. This book is here to help you break free.
Stop Overthinking Workbook understands the challenges you’ve faced, the mental exhaustion of endless thought loops, and the stress that holds you back. Acclaimed author Nick Trenton guides you with actionable, science-backed strategies to rewire your brain, master your thoughts, and transform your mental habits.
Inside, you’ll discover proven techniques to:
- Regain control of your mind and stay present.
- Overcome anxiety and stress with practical tools.
- Build a healthier, more positive relationship with your thoughts.
With insightful advice and easy-to-follow exercises, this workbook offers a fresh perspective on breaking free from overthinking and embracing a calm, focused mindset. Start your journey to mental clarity today!
Father Tongue, Motherland
How do languages mix? Does it begin in chaos, new migrants and old inhabitants needing a pidgin to communicate? Or does it happen more smoothly, in stages? And what is a prakrit? Why do we hear only of prakrits, and never of pidgins, in South Asia?
In Father Tongue, Motherland, Peggy Mohan looks at exactly how the mixed languages in South Asia came to life. Like a flame moving from wick to wick in early encounters between male settlers and locals skilled at learning languages, the language would start to ‘go native’ as it spread. This produced ‘father tongues’, with words taken from the migrant men’s language, but grammars that preserved the earlier languages of the ‘motherland’.
Looking first at Dakkhini, spoken in the Deccan where north meets south, Mohan goes on to build an X-ray image of a vanished language of the Indus Valley Civilization from the ‘ancient bones’ visible in the modern languages of the area. In the east, she explores another migration of men 4000 years ago that left its mark on language beyond the Ganga-Yamuna confluence. How did the Dravidian people and their languages end up in south India? And what about Nepal, where men coming into the Kathmandu Valley 500 years ago created a hybrid eerily similar to what we find in the rest of the subcontinent?
One image running through this book is of something that remains even when the living form of language fades. Tucked away in how we think and speak now are echoes of our history, and the story of ancestors who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago.
The New Icon
Did Savarkar battle a stormy sea when he attempted his legendary escape at Marseilles? Did Gandhiji and he stay together ‘as friends’ in London as Savarkar claimed during Gandhiji’s assassination trial? Did he turn against Muslims because of the cruelty of jailers in the Andamans? What is one to make of his ‘mercy petitions’ to the British? Did he pledge to be ‘politically useful’ to the British and accept conditions for his release that even the British had not demanded? During the Quit India movement, did Savarkar promise ‘whole-hearted cooperation’ to the British? What did he seek from the British? Was Savarkar the one who showed Subhas Bose the path that Netaji then followed?
What did Savarkar think of Hinduism, about our beliefs and ‘holy cows’, about the texts Hindus hold to be sacred? Have our people been suffused with Hindutva as Savarkar maintained? What sort of a State did he envisage? Is Savarkar being resurrected today to erase the one great inconvenience-Gandhiji?
In The New Icon, Arun Shourie delves deep into Savarkar’s books, essays, speeches, statements to answer these and other questions. He exhumes archives of the British government. He takes us through contemporary records. And unearths facts that will surprise you
Rising Sons
In pre-independent India, in the small village of Kesarugattu somewhere in Karnataka, Devaraya, a Brahmin, goes about further ossifying his status. This little hamlet, like every other, follows the said and unsaid rules of caste and religion. Inter-caste marriages are frowned upon. Brahmin and other wealthy upper caste men set the rules. The Ai tribes live far away from the village, in the forest. As societal divisions and unlikely friendships play out in the everyday life of the village, a secret from Devaraya’s past comes to haunt him and his family. The repercussions are huge for both Devaraya, his wife Gowru and his two sons Nanju and Anna.
Even as battle lines are drawn in the village and undeclared allies offer support, this fresh trouble claims one of his two sons. That’s not all – meanwhile, the Independence movement that infects the little hamlet sweeps away his other son in its fever. What is to become of the dreams Devaraya had for his sons?
Rising Sons, a novel in four parts, tells the delicate story of the relationship between fathers and sons, between husbands and wives, between family and society; of the fate of a small village that is tied to the making of a great nation; of the hope and promise of the young against the disappointments of the past; of the hows and whys of political life.