A collection of gems by our best-loved cartoonist, R.K. Laxman
From financial crises to the woes of householders, from political instability to rampant corruption, these cartoons capture the entire gamut of contemporary Indian experience. Hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time, this is a treasure house of humour from one of the most striking voices commenting on Indian sociopolitical life today.
A collection of gems by our best-loved cartoonist, R.K. Laxman
From financial crises to the woes of householders, from political instability to rampant corruption, these cartoons capture the entire gamut of contemporary Indian experience. Hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time, this is a treasure house of humour from one of the most striking voices commenting on Indian sociopolitical life today.
Believe, Sachin Tendulkar told him-and he took it to heart, getting the word etched on his arm as a tattoo.
In this book, Suresh Raina takes us through the challenges he faced as a young cricketer. He was bullied in school and at cricket camps, but he always punched above his weight, overcoming every adversity life threw at him and never giving up. This is the story of the lessons he learnt and the friendships he built.
Peppered with invaluable insights-about the game and about life-that Raina acquired from senior colleagues like M.S. Dohni, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, among others, this book will make you believe in the power of hard work, love, luck, hope and camaraderie. It is a journey through the hights and lows in the cricketing career of a man who saw his world fall apart and yet became one of the most influential white-ball cricketers India has ever seen.
A witty look at the strange world of politics by our best-loved cartoonist
This exhilarating collection by R.K. Laxman takes a humorous look at the colourful personalities, peculiar codes of conduct and bombastic rhetoric that characterize the inimitable world of politics.
A Vote for Laughter contains a hundred of the classic Common Man cartoons that have to do with political subjects, from party meetings, election campaigns and VVIP movements to cabinet reshuffles, horse trading and foreign tours, not to forget the activity that for Laxman defines the Indian politician: the impulse to rush to the well of the House. These are accompanied by a hundred of the funniest jokes about politics and politicians, collected from all over the world.
A Vote for Laughter will entertain everyone who enjoys seeing the farcical streak in our contemporary politics, even as we take pride in being the largest democracy in the world.
A humorous look at doctors and their ilk by India’s best-loved cartoonist
Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. It is therefore fitting that the world’s most honourable profession should have a great deal of fun made at its expense. Humour directed at physicians and medicine has sustained many a suffering patient through the bleakest of times. A Dose of Laughter is an exhilarating collection of cartoons and jokes about doctors and their practices that will bring a smile to the lips of those who wield the stethoscope as well as those who yield to it.
This book contains 100 cartoons about the world of doctors, hospitals, laboratories, ailments, maladies, health schemes and hygiene that show R.K. Laxman at his inimitable best. These are accompanied by a hundred of the funniest jokes about doctors and the medical profession collected from all over the world. Together, these make for a witty, perceptive look at the unequal effort doctors make to combat disease and bring succour to their fellow humans. This is a book that can be dipped into at random, or read from cover to cover. In either case, it is guaranteed to provide a great deal of unadulterated merriment and laughter.
When India and Pakistan held nuclear tests in 1998, they restarted the clock on a competition that had begun half a century earlier. Nuclear weapons restored strategic parity, erasing the advantage of India’s much larger size and conventional military superiority. Yet, in the years that followed, Pakistan went on to lose decisively to India. It lost any ability to stake a serious claim to Kashmir, a region it called its jugular vein. Its ability to influence events in Afghanistan diminished. While India’s growing economy won it recognition as a rising world power, Pakistan became known as a failing state. Pakistan had lost to India before but the setbacks since 1998 made this defeat irreversible.
Defeat Is an Orphan follows the roller-coaster ride through post-nuclear India-Pakistan, from bitter conflict in the mountains to military confrontation in the plains, from the hijacking of an Indian plane to the assault on Mumbai. Nuclear weapons proved to be Pakistan’s undoing. They encouraged a reckless reliance on militant proxies even as the jihadis spun out of control outside and inside Pakistan. By shielding it from retaliation, the nuclear weapons also sealed it into its own dysfunction-so much so that the Great South Asian War, fought on-and-off since 1947, was not so much won by India as lost by Pakistan.
KERALA SAHITYA AKADEMI AWARD WINNER
A Thousand Cuts is a harrowing, sobering and ultimately inspiring autobiography of Professor T.J. Joseph, who in 2010 became the victim of a brutal terrorist assault, accused of blasphemy after setting an exam question that enraged fundamentalists. This book is an important reminder of the pernicious effect of religious extremism and the duty of every person to speak out against those who would silence free expression’ SHASHI THAROOR
‘There is excruciating agony here, but also black humour and irony that enliven and lighten the narrative even at the height of anguish’ K. SATCHIDANANDAN
‘The poignant tale, with its sense of urgency and helplessness, has been sensitively translated as A Thousand Cuts‘ RANA SAFVI
A chilling account of religious extremism
In 2010, T.J. Joseph, a professor of Malayalam at Newman College, Kerala, framed an innocuous question for an internal examination that changed his life forever. Following a trumped-up charge of blasphemy, members of a radical Islamist organization set upon him in public, viciously maiming him and chopping off his right hand. His memoir, told with amazing restraint and wry humour, is the moving tale of his life and family as they went through hell and beyond. Here’s the extraordinary story of a man who survived dismembering only to be betrayed by his
own Church. Let alone stand by him, it robbed him of his livelihood and isolated him from his community, driving Joseph’s long-suffering wife to melancholia and eventual suicide. Joseph’s story is one of fortitude, will power, forgiveness and compassion, told with rare wit that will make readers chuckle through their tears.
This is a tale that will leave the reader seething, weeping and smiling by turns.
Competing Nationalisms is more than a political biography of Jagat Narain Lal-now forgotten by history, but once an influential member of the freedom movement in Bihar. As a member of the Congress and of the Hindu Mahasabha; as a Hindu nationalist who wanted to combine religion with civic virtues; as a Gandhian and an ‘ascetic nationalist’ seeking freedom in a political world, Jagat Narain Lal’s life becomes a mirror for the times in which a mix of religiosity, spirituality and ritual could not be separated from either the social or the political field.
The book travels with Jagat Narain Lal on his journey through four pathways-Ascetic, Hindu Nationalist, Anti-Colonial and Civic nationalisms. His life and times give us a glimpse into these intersecting, contesting and mutating idioms of nationalism. There are bigger leaders, taller nationalists, more valiant fighters of freedom, but none who perhaps so tortuously embodied the many possibilities and contradictions of Indian nationalism. In his anxieties, vulnerability, negotiations and truth-telling, we glimpse Indian nationalism’s own fraught relationship with questions of identity, faith and nationhood.
In leafing through her grandfather’s life, page by yellowed page, Chandra presents not just his political biography but, in a sense, a personal biography of Indian nationalism as well. In Jagat Narain Lal’s small story lies a bigger history of competing nationalisms, as well as a tale that
speaks to the present.
Prithvi, a twenty-one-year-old, is searching for a mysterious middle-aged aghori (Shiva devotee), Om Shastri, who was traced more than 200 years ago before he was captured and transported to a high-tech facility on an isolated Indian island. When the aghori was drugged and hypnotized for interrogation by a team of specialists, he claimed to have witnessed all four yugas (the epochs in Hinduism) and even participated in both Ramayana and Mahabharata. Om’s revelations of his incredible past that defied the nature of mortality left everyone baffled. The team also discovers that Om had been in search of the other immortals from every yuga. These bizarre secrets could shake up the ancient beliefs of the present and alter the course of the future. So who is Om Shastri? Why was he captured? Board the boat of Om Shastri’s secrets, Prithvi’s pursuit and adventures of other enigmatic immortals of Hindu mythology in this exciting and revealing journey.
The new and enhanced edition of Exam Warriors by Narendra Modi is not only an inspiring book for students but also for their parents and teachers. Written in a fun and interactive style, with illustrations, activities and yoga asanas, this book will be a friend in acing exams and facing life.
Non-preachy, practical and thought-provoking, Exam Warriors is a handy guide for youth of India and across the world.
