Fairy tales with a difference India’s greatest poet of modern times, Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore was a philosopher, a visionary and a storyteller par excellence. His short, lyrical prose fables, set in a generic fairyland or in everyday locales, are philosophical excursions across magical landscapes that speak to the imaginative child in every reader. The pages of The Prince and Other Modern Fables are full of insightful little stories that reveal the simple truth about life. There is the story of a little boy who has lost his mother, of a tribal girl who is mistaken for a fairy, of a jester who watches a king fight his battles from the sidelines, of a young man who tries to come to terms with his first heartache, and of a modern-day prince who is trying to eke out a living in the unforgiving city. Asking questions that we usually don’t stop to ask ourselves, and often coming up with answers that are surprising in their simplicity, every story sparkles with insights on the human condition, and remains etched in the mind long afterwards. Now available in a lucid and vibrant translation, this classic collection is sure to enchant modern readers who might never have encountered it before.
Archives: Books
Jaldi’s Friends
A pup with ESP, a benign elephant, a kidnap and a Secret Service led by the famous Rani of Bandalbaaz!
This swift and racy tale of the adventures of Jaldi, a railway puppy with special powers, is set against the backdrop of Bombay’s notorious underPBI – World.
Recruited for the Secret Service by the elegant and ferocious Rani, Jaldi must use her powers to find JP and BB, the evil duo who want to destroy the historic friendship between the proud Bombay Strays and the humans who share their city.
Can Jaldi outwit the killers and the crafty TickTock? With her Uncle Musafir, King Ilango the Elephant, and other assorted friends, Jaldi plunges headlong into mayhem and adventure!
Kabir
Knowledge ahead, knowledge behind,
knowledge to the left and right.
The knowledge that knows what knowledge is:
that’s the knowledge that’s mine.
-Bijak, sakhi 188
One of India’s greatest mystics, Kabir (1398-1448) was also a satirist and philosopher, a poet of timeless wit and wisdom. Equally immersed in theology and social thought, music and politics, his songs have won devoted followers from every walk of life through the past five centuries. He was a Muslim by name, but his ideas stand at the intersection of Hinduism and Islam, Bhakti and Yoga, religion and secularism. And his words were always marked by rhetorical boldness and conceptual subtlety.
This book offers Vinay Dharwadker’s sparkling new translations of one hundred poems, drawing for the first time on major sources in half a dozen literary languages. They closely mimic the structure, voice and style of the originals, revealing Kabir’s multiple facets in historical and cultural contexts. Finely balancing simplicity and complexity, this selection opens up new forms of imagination and experience for discerning readers around the world.
The Path Of The Buddha
Buddha Shakyamuni tells us that a practitioner should think in terms of eons, not just days and hours. From a Buddhist viewpoint, life has no beginning. What we do have is the desire to overcome suffering. But desire alone is not enough to achieve the goal. What we need is the correct method to help us achieve this aim.’— His Holiness the Dalai Lama So compelling is the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama that it loses none of its sheen with a retelling. Impelled by a desire to deal with the sorrows of human existence, he renounces the world when barely twenty-nine and finds Buddhism. Giving Buddha’s spiritual journey a contemporary dimension, this anthology contains essays by spiritual leaders like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Thubten Yeshe on the impact of Buddhist philosophy on them. Equally poignant are the accounts of others who, dissatisfied with the present world, embark on a search for salvation. Urged by a seemingly simple notion, Donna Brown starts her quest to find a really ‘good’ person; a journey which takes her from the heart of Canada to Nepal’s remote Kopan monastery. An inexplicable restlessness takes Robina Courtin from dabbling in drugs, political activism and martial arts to finding truth as a Buddhist nun. Though born into a Sikh family, Dharmakirti grows up in Sikkim amidst Buddhist monasteries, maroon-robed monks and monastic rituals, and eventually chooses the philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism over science. For Kabir Saxena, Buddhism offers a practical path in this broken, imperfect world. Varied and meaningful, The Path of the Buddha provides a rare glimpse into Buddhism.
Afterwards
There is always, if not exactly a ‘happily ever after’, at least an ‘afterwards’ to every story — When Rahul Tiwari arrives in Kerala for a short break from London, he has no premonition of a life-changing moment. But one glance over the fence at his lovely but reticent neighbour Maya is enough to launch him on a path of no return. He finds himself playing friend, partner, co-conspirator, and finally the entirely unexpected role of saviour as Maya, suffocating under the weight of a loveless marriage and a suspicious husband, turns to him for help. Together, they flee India with Maya’s one-year-old daughter Anjali and life seems to hold all the promise of a new beginning, until destiny strikes — With characteristic ease and insight, Jaishree Misra writes in her new novel of the transforming power of love and of the joy and heartbreak of giving yourself to another, for better or for worse.
White Mughals
James Achilles Kirkpatrick landed on the shores of eighteenth-century India as an ambitious soldier of the East India Company. Although eager to make his name in the subjection of a nation, it was he who was conquered—not by an army but by a Muslim Indian princess. Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Khair un-Nissa—’Most Excellent among Women’—the great-niece of the Nizam’s Prime Minister. He fell in love with Khair, and overcame many obstacles to marry her—not least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and engaged to a local nobleman. Eventually, while remaining Resident, Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company. Possessing all the sweep of a great nineteenth-century novel, White Mughals is a remarkable tale of harem politics, secret assignations, court intrigue, religious disputes and espionage.
The Age Of Kali
From the author of The Last Mughal and Nine Lives: the classic stories he gathered during the ten years he spent journeying across the Indian subcontinent, from Sri Lanka and southern India to the North West Frontier of Pakistan. As he searched for evidence of Kali Yug, the “age of darkness” predicted by an ancient Hindu cosmology in a final epoch of strife and corruption, Dalrymple encountered a region that thrilled and surprised him. Venturing to places rarely visited by foreigners, he presents compelling portraits of a diverse range of figures—from a Hindi rap megastar through the Tamil Tigers to the drug lords of Pakistan. Dalrymple’s love for the subcontinent comes across in every page, which makes its chronicles of political corruption, ethnic violence and social disintegration all the more poignant. The result is a dark yet vibrant travelogue, and a unique look at a region that continues to be marked by rapid change and unlimited possibilities as it struggles to reconcile the forces of modernity and tradition.
In Xanadu
In Xanadu is, without doubt, one of the best travel books produced in the last 20 years. It is witty and intelligent, brilliantly observed, deftly constructed and extremely entertaining. Dalrymple’s gift for transforming ordinary humdrum experience into something extraordinary and timeless suggests that he will go from strength to strength. The book leavens adventure story and scholarly history with farcical dialogue with high-spirited buffoonery. It is a fast, furious read, clearly the stuff bestsellers are made of.
From The Holy Mountain
A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium
‘In his third book William Dalrymple has dug deep to present the case of the Middle East’s downtrodden Christians. More hard-hitting than either of his previous books, From the Holy Mountain is driven by indignation. While leavened with his characteristic jauntiness and humour, it is also profoundly shocking. Time and time again in the details of Dalrymple’s discoveries I found myself asking: why do we not know this?
The sense of unsung tragedy accumulates throughout the chapters of this book…From the Holy Mountain is the most rewarding sort of travel book, combining flashes of lightly-worn scholarship with a powerful sense of place and the immediacy of the best journalism. But more than that it is a passionate cri de coeur for a forgotten people which few readers will be able to resist’—Philip Marsden, Spectator.
Collected Stories
Story-writing is, to me, a way of exploring the world,’ says best-selling novelist and short-story writer Shashi Deshpande. In this, the second volume of her collected short fiction, we travel with her into a world of characters and situations that are identifiable, and experience emotions that are at once complex and cathartic. Intensely felt and beautifully rendered, these are stories that will stay with you a long, long time.