A travelogue and an ethnographic study that builds upon hundreds of oral testimonies, A White Trail tells the stories of the complex lived-realities of religious minorities in Pakistan-stories of their triumphs, insecurities, aspirations, marginalization and resilience. The book tells the tale of a group of young Hindu boys who came together to revive their festivals after decades of hidden celebrations. It narrates the story of the Sikh community in Nankana and how it began carving out an identity in a Muslim-dominated city. And it explores how the Christian community expresses its religious identity in a local, South-Asian flavour.
A White Trail is a journey through the different festivals of the five religious minorities of Pakistan, narrating the lives of the different communities in their own words. It reveals what it means to celebrate religious festivals under the shadow of rising intolerance, structural persecution and increased cases of religious violence.
On 25 January 1987, with the telecast of the very first episode of Ramayan, Indian television changed for all time to come. In a matter of weeks, the series became a national obsession. During the Ramayan slot, roads emptied out. No marriages and political rallies were scheduled for that time. More than three decades later, there has been nothing to match it.
Ramanand Sagar, the man behind the phenomenon and a successful filmmaker from Bombay, was among the first to recognise the immense power of television. He first made his mark as a writer in Raj Kapoor’s Barsat (1949). From 1961 to 1970, Sagar wrote, produced and directed six consecutive silver jubilee hits-Ghunghat, Zindagi, Arzoo, Ankhen, Geet and Lalkar.
An Epic Life: Ramanand Sagar, From Barsaat to Ramayan, written by his son, Prem Sagar, an award-winning cinematographer, is an intimate look at the life of a visionary. It traces Sagar’s life from his birth in Kashmir in 1917, his dramatic escape in 1947 when Pakistani tribesmen attacked the state, his arrival in Bombay and his subsequent glorious career-the crowning achievement of which was the smashing success of Ramayan.
Independent India has so far witnessed twenty-eight finance ministers. But only a handful of them could leave their mark on the exchequer or North Block, the headquarters of the Indian finance ministry. From Independence to Emergency: India’s Finance Ministers 1947-1977 is the story of India’s unforgettable finance ministers who shaped India’s economy in the first thirty years after Independence. The book highlights the significant difference that these finance ministers made to the management of the Indian economy and to the policy evolution of the government, and who thus left an indelible mark on the psyche of Indian citizens. It attempts to measure the impact these decisions left, not only on India’s economic system but also on its political system, and looks at to what extent the decisions were influenced by the socio-economic backgrounds of the finance ministers.
Full of interesting anecdotes, the book is the first in-depth account of the crucial role these finance ministers have played in the functioning of India’s economy.
A bomb explodes in a university cafe, claiming the lives of nineteen students. The Empty Space begins with the identification of those nineteen dead. The mother who enters the cafe last to identify the nineteenth body brings home her dead eighteen-year-old son packed in a box, as well as the of the sole survivor e blast, a three-year-old boy who, by a strange quirk of fate, is found lying in a small empty space, alive and breathing.
The Empty Space chronicles the memories of the boy gone, the story of the boy brought home, and the
cataclysmic crossing of life and death.
Do you know why the Indian Navy counts ‘One, Two, Six’ instead of ‘One, Two, Three’ while doing group tasks?
Or that the Intelligence Bureau was set up in response to an assassination?
Or that a Frenchman who had served three nations before turning thirty eventually rose to become the most powerful general of the Marathas?
Or that an army man gave his name to the highest mountain without ever having set foot on it?
Find out the answers to these and more as a team of quizzer-doctors from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) Pune takes you on a journey across 250 questions, exploring trivia that connects the Indian Armed Forces to topics ranging from mythology, history and art to geography, fashion and sport.
This and more in a quiz book that will help you see the Indian Armed Forces through a lens you might never have seen before.
Happy exploring!
Manasi is a stalwart of Malayalam literature. With her unparalleled feminist writing and powerful voice, she has mastered the art of telling radical short stories. Through Subversive Whispers, a collection of some of her best work, she continues to defy patriarchy, question Brahminical hegemony and push narratives that subtly yet fervently challenge the status quo. The book introduces readers to the irreverent ‘Sheelavathi’, which explores the Madonna-Whore complex in a uniquely local context, ‘Devi Mahathmyam’, which sheds light on the price that women pay for being goddesses in mere name and stories such as ‘Spelling Mistakes’, ‘Square Shapes’ and ‘The Walls’, all of which explore romantic love with a piercing realism.
In stark and urgent murmurs that build up a fever pitch, these stories channel women’s voices that open up their inner worlds, struggling to capture the minutiae of their suffering. It is this whisper-like quality of Manasi’s storytelling that J Devika deftly conveys in translation, bringing the author’s prose to the English reader in an incendiary collection that is sure to cast light on the darkened chambers of patriarchy and the hidden recesses of women’s minds.
This definitive book on the Sultans of Oman is a thrilling historical account of their action-packed battles, daring expeditions, epic triumphs and ingenious politics in the long nineteenth century. It puts the optic of ‘micro-history’ on their fascinating lives as they navigated the geopolitics of their time and propelled the politics of the Western Indian Ocean. It offers a comprehensive and in-depth examination of the ambitions of the Omani patriarch Sultan Sayyid Said and his four sons and shows how integral they were to the political culture of the region.
Keeping a sensitive finger on the specific temporal and spatial moments in the maritime space that they navigated, it explores their key role in shaping the politics of the Ocean and nurturing the Omani Sultanate on their terms. The groundbreaking narrative sheds light on the role of the Sultans as agents of change, challenging the Eurocentric narrative that views the Indian Ocean as framed in the history of western imperialism and capitalism alone.
In addition to its academic rigour, the book is easy to read and engaging, making it an ideal resource for students, scholars and anyone with an interest in the history of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and South Asia. Its fresh perspective and insightful analysis make it an invaluable contribution to the fast-growing field of Indian Ocean Studies.
In this beautifully crafted novel, roofs have a special place; they are meant for wild things, for romance and for play, they are places to dry pickles and grains while exchanging gossip about quiet caresses. But above all, they are realms of freedom. In The Roof Beneath their Feet, Chachcho and Lalna use their roofs to build a friendship that transcends time and memory. Suddenly one day, Lalna has to leave, to return only after Chachcho’s passing. Amidst rumors and gossip in the neighborhood, Chachcho’s nephew tries to piece together his memories of the two women, one of whom is his mother. The truth he is searching for could destroy him forever, but to not find out is no longer an option. A story of twists and turns, The Roof Beneath Their Feet, translated from the original Hindi by Rahul Soni, is easily one of the best contemporary novels you have read in a long time.
In a recently liberated economy characterized by speed, the commodification of women’s bodies and consumerist culture, Bhashwati is an increasingly disillusioned misfit who has, ironically, just started working in an advertising firm. But her life changes one day when she finds out about the mysterious Mohua Roy, a former copywriter with the company, whose desk Bhashwati now uses. The company employees remain tight-lipped about Mohua, who had left abruptly for reasons unknown. On finding a poem written by Mohua, Bhashwati decides to search for her. This takes Bhashwati to Calcutta’s lanes, where she meets people who sacrificed immensely for the same values that she finds eroded in a developing India. Who is Mohua Roy? Why is there a net of silence around her very existence? Will Bhashwati find Mohua? Will she leave her job, just like Mohua?
Hriday Ek Bigyapan, first published in Assamese in 1997, was an instant bestseller, going into tens of reprints in the next two decades. By taking a close look at the newly globalized India of the 1990s from a feminist lens, it poses questions about modern urban life that few Indian novels have been able to-questions that are still relevant today. Aruni Kashyap’s seamless translation from the Assamese makes this book a must-read.
‘A model work of historical scholarship’-Ramachandra Guha
‘The most well-researched, comprehensive history of contemporary Assam ever written’-Partha Chatterjee
The crucial battles of World War II fought in India’s north-east-followed soon after by Independence and Partition-had a critical impact on the making of modern Assam. In the three decades following 1947, the state of Assam underwent massive political turmoil, geographical instability, and social and demographic upheaval, among others. Later, the truncated state suffered widespread unrest as various groups believed their cultural identity and political leverage were under threat. New social energies and political forces were unleashed and came to the fore.
Definitive, comprehensive and unputdownable, The Quest for Modern Assam explores the interconnected layers of political, environmental, economic and cultural processes that shaped the development of Assam since the 1940s. It offers an authoritative account that sets new standards in the writing of regional political history. Not to be missed by any one keen on Assam, India, Asia or world history in the twentieth century.
