Archives: Books

Has the queer movement’s politics in India escaped the combined onslaught of neoliberalism, Hindutva and brahminism? What has this triad done to queer politics in the wake of the ‘reading down’ of India’s sodomy law? Has the decriminalization of adult, consensual and private sex, depoliticized the queer movement? Is the queer movement immune to casteist, sexist and religious prejudice? In the aftermath of the failures and triumphs in the historic Naz, Koushal, NALSA and Navtej judgements of the Supreme Court of India, the essays in this volume engage in a counterintuitive interrogation of the prejudiced dimensions of the mainstream queer movement in India. The essays offer insights into the ways in which new forms of queer solidarities, mobilizations and imaginaries are resisting and subverting the movement’s tacit and overt alignments with neoliberalism, Hindutva and brahminism.

In the 1990s, India’s mediascape saw the efflorescence of edgy soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala. In Rated A, Darshana Sreedhar Mini examines the local and transnational influences that shaped Malayalam soft-porn cinema—such as vernacular pulp fiction, illustrated erotic tales, and American exploitation cinema—and maps the genre’s circulation among blue-collar workers of the Indian diaspora in the Middle East, where pirated versions circulate alongside low-budget Bangladeshi films and Pakistani mujra dance films as South Asian pornography. Through a mix of archival and ethnographic research, Mini also explores the soft-porn industry’s utilization of gendered labor and trust-based arrangements, as well as how actresses and production personnel who are marked by their involvement with a taboo form negotiate their social lives. By locating the tense negotiations between sexuality, import policy, and censorship in contemporary India, this study offers a model for understanding film genres outside of screen space, emphasizing that they constitute not just industrial formations but entire fields of social relations and gendered imaginaries.

A fantastic two-books slipcase from one of the most eclectic and stimulating public intellectuals at large today, Jordan Peterson.
12 RULES FOR LIFE
What does everyone in the modern world need to know?

Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.

Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith and human nature, while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.

BEYOND ORDER
The companion volume to 12 Rules for Life offers further guidance on the perilous path of modern life.

In 12 Rules for Life, clinical psychologist and celebrated professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto Dr. Jordan B. Peterson helped millions of readers impose order on the chaos of their lives. Now, in this bold sequel, Peterson delivers twelve more lifesaving principles for resisting the exhausting toll that our desire to order the world inevitably takes.

In a time when the human will increasingly imposes itself over every sphere of life—from our social structures to our emotional states—Peterson warns that too much security is dangerous. What’s more, he offers strategies for overcoming the cultural, scientific, and psychological forces causing us to tend toward tyranny, and teaches us how to rely instead on our instinct to find meaning and purpose, even—and especially—when we find ourselves powerless.

A Night in the Hills is rich with human stories of grief, passion, loneliness, first love and emotions that defy explanation. One feels as if these people have moved in and out of their lives at some point in time. Whether it is the young love of Raju in A Bunch of Old Letters, or the exploration of intimacy between Inder and Roshni in a hospital in Tragedy, or a lost love in Itti and Uday, one finds oneself absorbed in the palpability of their existence. You feel as if you’ve have met A Copy Artist who’s not only lost all sense of reality, but also insists it all be seen through his lens. The Swallow creates a world where very different people are brought together and yet they share a bond.

Full of sensitive moments of hope and despair, togetherness and separation, A Night in the Hills carries tales that you can dip into and savour.

Historically, India has been a country of small businesses and a nation of entrepreneurial strivers. While the notion of job is a relatively modern-day invention, entrepreneurship is in our DNA, which could be why small businesses continue to power the Indian growth story even today. Post-pandemic, economies all over the world are encouraging the small entrepreneur and India is no exception.

Big Country, Little Business will teach you not only how to avoid common missteps while setting up your new business, but also help it thrive. This book is packed with exceptional examples, networking toolkits, funding advice and detailed how-to guides for launching your new venture, and also has over 100 business ideas for those seeking inspiration.

Award-winning educationist and social entrepreneur Santosh Choubey, along with Dr Siddharth Chaturvedi and Dr Pallavi Rao-Chaturvedi, have drafted this book from the experiences of thousands of micro-enterprises that they have helped set up, reflecting in-depth understanding of the small business environment. If you’ve always wanted to be your own boss, Big Country, Little Business will give you just the impetus you need.