Altaf Hussein, a young Muslim student, has been abducted from his college hostel. The authorities have washed their hands off the matter and the police are accused of a cover up. Rumours claim he has gone to fight the jihad in Iraq. More sinister rumours have him tortured and murdered for opposing the Nationalist students who are on a rampage to create a Hindu homeland in India, driving out Liberal supporters like Altaf and their decadent ideals.
The divide between Liberals and Nationalists invades the Sengupta household in Kolkata when Joy, a bank manager, and Rohini, his schoolteacher wife-both compassionate humanists-learn the shocking news that their only son Bobby has become a leader of the Nationalist students and is implicated in Altaf’s disappearance. Disbelief turns to anguish when they encounter his belligerent ideology and his not-too-convincing denial of his role in the Altaf affair.
Out to solve the mystery of Altaf, Joy and Rohini discover conspiracy and hate, forbidden love and exceptional courage, come face to face with a world caught between the real and the ideal. But will they succeed in absolving their son of the heinous crime? Will Altaf be found after all? Or will they, and this fractured nation, pay the ultimate price for harbouring a fractured heart?
** 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION **
What if your life depended on being able to tell a good story?
Schariar, King of Persia, would marry a woman every night only to chop off her head every morning. He had sentenced the clever Scherazade to the same fate. Determined to save herself and other women from this gruesome decree, Queen Scherazade begins telling him stories one night-of magic lamps and genies, of fishermen and caliphs, of treasure caves and strange potions.
Tales so wonderful that the one night turns into 1001 . . . But what will happen when Scherazade runs out of yarns to spin?
Illustrated afresh, this tenth-anniversary edition offers tales from the Arabian Nights as told by the magical storyteller Scherazade. Narrated in an engaging, tongue-in-cheek style complete with vivid imagery, The Storyteller will keep you spellbound for days!
The dangerous virus is making everything go into lockdown. But the village poacher trying to catch the pangolin Chumki has befriended. How will Chumki save the rare animal in these tough times?
Malhar wants to be a famous tabla player. But why do tabla players always sit to one side of the stage? Are they not important enough? Malhar wants answers–and he wants to sit in the middle!
As India completes 75 years of independence, we bring to you a slice of our beloved country in the words of our favourite author, Ruskin Bond. Drawing on his own memories and impressions of this unique land, he pays homage to the country that has been his home for 84 years. Bond talks fondly about the diverse elements that make up this beautiful land-its rivers and forests, literature and culture, sights, sounds and colours. A Little Book of India is an amalgamation of the physical and spiritual attributes of our homeland, and takes you on a journey filled with nostalgia and devotion.
Playful Principles for Conscious Living
What if, to lead our most fulfilling life, there was nothing to acquire, nothing to accomplish, nothing to master? What if we are already home, already whole, already complete? What if, all that is needed, is to gently set down the burden?
Unburden is an invitation to examine ideas, identities and concepts that bind and limit us. We begin to access the power and potency that comes from trusting the silence underlying all thoughts and experiences.
In Nithya Shanti’s inimitable voice, discover profound teachings, simply told. Nithya shares anecdotes, exercises for self-discovery and pointers for awakening, through a distillation of timeless wisdom and contemporary discoveries, along with his own innovations from decades of intensive teaching and practice.
Let this book provoke, challenge and inspire us to step into a realm of awareness, gratitude and joy. As an everyday companion and guide, may it take us on what may well be the most significant shift we ever experience – being happy and fulfilled for no reason.
There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia, forming two Governments and raising two armies and then disappearing into the unknown. All this in a span of just two decades.
Now, new information throws light on Bose’s intense political activities surrounding the revolutionary groups in Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra and United Provinces, his efforts to bridge the increasing communal divide and his influence among the splintered political landscape; his outlook and relations with women; his plunge into the depths of spirituality; his penchant for covert operations and his efforts to engineer a rebellion among the Indian armed forces. With this new information, what appeared to be dramatic now becomes more intense with plots and subplots under one man’s single-minded focus on freeing the motherland and envisioning its development in a new era.
Furthermore, one of the most sensitive issues that have prevented political parties and successive governments from talking much about Bose is his joining the Axis camp. While Jawaharlal Nehru and other prominent Congress leaders publicly denounced the move, the Communist Party of India went on to a prolonged vilification campaign. Sardar Patel issued instruction to Congress leaders to defend the INA soldiers without eulogizing their leader.
Was Bose really a Nazi sympathiser? Knowing very well about the strong public opinion that existed among the political leadership and the intelligentsia in India against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan, why did he risk his own political image by allying with the Axis powers?
Pacey, thought-provoking and absolutely unputdownable, Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist will open a window to many hitherto untold and unknown stories of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
Probably the first critical biography of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose till date.
Renu Amin always seemed perfect: doting husband, beautiful house, healthy sons. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, Renu is binge-watching soap operas and simmering with old resentments. She can’t stop wondering if, thirty-five years ago, she chose the wrong life. In Los Angeles, her son, Akash, has everything he ever wanted, but as he tries to kickstart his songwriting career and commit to his boyfriend, he is haunted by the painful memories he fled a decade ago. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois, hoping to finally say goodbye and move on.
Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. Renu sends an innocent Facebook message to the man she almost married, sparking an emotional affair that calls into question everything she thought she knew about herself. Akash slips back into bad habits as he confronts his darkest secrets-including what really happened between him and the first boy who broke his heart. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they’ve since created, between making each other happy and setting themselves free.
By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.
Translated from the Bengali by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
From one of the greatest Bengali novelists of all time
Aranyak, written in 1939, is a famous Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay based on his long and arduous years in northern Bihar. There he came into contact with a part of the world that, even now, remains unknown to most of us. ‘Aranyak’ literally means ‘Of the Forest’.
This novel explores the simple and heart-warming story of a man who gets a job as an estate manager in Bihar, and slowly falls in love with the beautiful and tranquil forest around him. The dichotomy of urban and rural life comes alive, reflecting the great love that human beings and nature can share, one that Bandyopadhyay experienced in his heart. Written by one of the greatest Bengali authors, this haunting novel is rooted in guilt and sadness but also tremendous beauty.
Farhatullah Baig imagines a mushaira as it might have been in the last glory days of Delhi, during the mid-nineteenth century, lit by the glowing embers of the dying Mughal empire.
The Last Light of Delhi is the story of a last grand mushaira held in the city of Delhi circa 1845. Though the mushaira is fictional, the book is a cultural document of the age, taking the reader on a journey in time to a past when poetry flowed through the streets of the city. It paints a portrait of a lost world, of the life and living styles of the upper classes of Delhi in the decade before the fateful year of 1857.
Baig takes the reader into the sitting rooms of some of the most iconic people of the time, from Mirza Ghalib to Bahadur Shah Zafar, giving us a glimpse into their private lives, describing their homes, their manners, their ways of dressing and talking, filling his portraits with colour and detail so that the poets appear vividly before us-and when they begin to recite their poems in the mushaira, it seems as if each poet is speaking out from the pages of the book.
