Baali and Sugreeva of the Vana Nara tribe were orphan brothers who were born in abject poverty and grew up as slaves like most of their fellow tribesmen. They were often mocked as the vanaras, the monkey men.
Sandwiched between the never-ending war between the Deva tribes in the north and the Asura tribes in the south, the Vana Naras seemed to have lost all hope. But Baali was determined not to die a slave. Aided by his beloved brother, Sugreeva, Baali built a country for his people. The capital city, Kishkindha, became a beacon of hope for emancipated slaves from across the world. It was a city of the people, by the people, for the people, where there was no discrimination based on caste, creed, language or the colour of skin. For a brief period in history, it seemed as if mankind had found its ideal hero in Baali. But then fate intervened through the beautiful Tara, the daughter of a tribal physician. Loved by Baali and lusted after by Sugreeva, Tara became the cause of a fraternal war that would change history for ever. The love triangle between Baali, Tara and Sugreeva is arguably the world’s first. Written by Anand Neelakantan who gave a voice to Ravana in Asura, Duryodhana in the Ajaya series and Sivagami in the Baahubali series, Vanara is a classic tale of love, lust and betrayal. Shakespearean in its tragic depth and epic in its sweep, Vanara gives voice to the greatest warrior in the Ramayana-Baali.
Archives: Books
Now That We’re Here
How do you prepare for a future if you don’t know what it is? How do you specialize in anything if the horizon is constantly shifting? What’s the goalpost and how do we get there? Is there even a goalpost?
The hyperconnected world that once seemed futuristic is now here. And now that we’re here, it’s time for us to educate ourselves for sweeping and endless possibilities. One way to do that is to blur the lines between technology, democracy, design, economics and data, and reconfigure our approach to learning altogether. This book is a giant leap in that direction. By harnessing the wisdom of thought leaders and intellectuals throughout history, by blending business and humanity, industry and society, and by covering cross-disciplinary themes, authors Akshay Tyagi and Akshat Tyagi give us a groundbreaking, genre-defying and utterly mind-bending collection of essays that will help us prepare for the here and now.
How to Raise a Feminist Son
How to Raise a Feminist Son is a love story that will resonate with feminists who hope to change the world, one kind boy at a time. From teaching consent to counteracting problematic messages from the media, well-meaning family, and the culture at large, we have big work to do when it comes to our boys. This empowering book offers much-needed insight and actionable advice. It’s also a beautifully written and deeply personal story of struggling, failing, and eventually succeeding at raising a feminist son.
Informed by the author’s work as a professor of journalism specializing in social-justice movements and social media, as well as by conversations with psychologists, experts, and other parents and boys, this book follows one mother’s journey to raise a feminist son as a single parent. Through stories from her own life and wide-ranging research, Sonora Jha shows us all how to be better feminists and better teachers of the next generation of men in this electrifying tour de force.
Redesign the World
The world was last designed seventy-five years ago, about the same time that Sam Pitroda was born. This design has outlived its utility. Hyperconnectivity and the COVID-19 pandemic offer a unique opportunity to redesign the world to take humanity to the next level.
Redesigning the world is not about looking at it from the point of view of liberal or conservative; left or right; capitalism or socialism; public or private; democracy, dictatorship or monarchy; open or closed systems; rich or poor; urban or rural; east or west; white, brown, black or yellow. This proposed redesign of the world has the planet and its people at the centre; it is built on the foundations of sustainability, inclusion, equality, equity and justice so that everyone on earth can enjoy peace and prosperity. It is not an idealist or utopian vision, but one with humanity at its core.
This book is about reshaping the world to meet the future challenges of our planet and our people.
All Drama, No Queen
Farida’s parents passed away in an accident when she was twelve. And for years, she’s had to fend off Reshma Phuppu, a distant relative plotting to gain control of her parents’ house in Bangalore. When all the drama gets too much, she runs away to stay with her best friend, Priya. Farida deeply feels the absence of a family, and only has memories of her distant cousin, Irshad. She’s had a crush on him since she was a twelve-year-old, but they lost contact when her parents died. Nearly two decades later, Priya’s boyfriend, Ajay, serendipitously finds Irshad.
Now, Irshad is a doctor and lives in Mumbai. Farida is thrilled to reconnect with him, but is disappointed when she learns that he’s engaged to another woman. But as Irshad and Farida meet and reminisce, it becomes hard to deny their deep bond. As things get more complicated between Farida, Irshad and his fiancée, Shagufta, Farida must find a way to deal with all the drama in her life.
Mind of a Consultant
‘Insider’s view into the consulting world’
‘Hard-to-learn skills shared in an easy manner’
Management consulting is seen as a glamorous profession. Behind the mystique are the consultants who put in extraordinary effort, inculcate great problem-solving skills and display fine personal attributes, which enable them to capture the attention and respect of their clients. This book opens into that world through the story of Samanta Thomas, a character based on countless excellent consultants, through whom we get a peek inside the very mind of a consultant and their journey.
The book shares with you an insider’s view of the management consulting world through the career journey of Samanta Thomas. The objective of the book is to help professionals in various stages of their careers to hone the key skills that can propel them into success. The following readers will find it very useful:
· Business professionals:
The skills discussed in this book are universal in nature. The central idea of the book is to have a consulting mindset for professional success. How can you be more effective in solving your business problems? Reading this book can help you.
The book also shares with you career tips, mindsets for success, and ways to overcome career failures and become better every day. These are valuable insights, whether you are junior, a mid-level professional or a senior in your career graph.
If you are a sales professional, this book will help you better your influence, your ability to network and your understanding of client/customer needs better. If you work in business-support functions such as IT and human resources, this book will help you wear the hat of an internal consultant more effectively.
The book provides the golden rules to lead. Essential lessons for whoever is in a leadership role or is aspiring to be in one!
· Consultants and aspiring consultants:
This book will help you reflect on your skills so you can be better at what you do. Client management, networking, problem-solving, management-consulting tools, financial acumen, leadership skills, working with a team, presentation skills and business growth-you will get a 360-degree view of all this through the story of Samanta Thomas. For experienced consultants, there is enough higher-order skills discussed in the book.
If you are a management graduate, this book will give you guidance on why consulting is for you. A couple of chapters discuss a management graduate’s entry into the consulting world and the skills needed to be successful. It will help you answer the question: ‘Is consulting the right career choice for me?’
As you traverse the journey of a management graduate growing to become a partner in a top consulting firm, The Mind of a Consultant will help you understand the various key skills that make for a successful consultant and professional. The real-life experiences of consulting leaders bridge the gap between concept and practical insight. Problem-solving, management models, financial acumen, client management, leadership, networking and work-life integration-this book hands you the tools to professional career success in a hands-on and easy-to-understand manner.
The Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Good News
Soon to be seen as a major motion picture Badnam Ladoo, this humorous yet inspiring story of a small-town woman’s fight against social stigma will resonate with every woman, and man
Thirty-four-year-old Ladoo, a simple middle-class divorcée from Rishikesh, wants only one thing from life–a baby. She eats gondh halwa, drinks badam milk, and takes folic acid, to slow down her ticking biological clock and become the world’s most fertile woman.
When an accidental meeting with a gynaecologist reveals that her ‘eggs are drying up’ and finding a sperm donor is her last chance of having a child, Ladoo races against time to find the right baby daddy, whose kundali matches her, while addressing her own mixed feelings about whether Mr Right Donor can also be Mr Right.
Along the way, Ladoo must figure out whether motherhood means marriage, whether being a single mother means loneliness, whether ‘my body, my rules’ applies to women, and whether doing something scandalous is outrageous or courageous.
The Art of Resilience
Losing sleep over what others think about you? Or can’t care less? Happiness in life nonetheless depends on what you think about yourself.
Social media has certainly given us individual authorship over how we present ourselves to the world. Susceptible to live by the dictates of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ of others, we network with the world in a carefully filtered image of ourselves. But is it truly our authentic self that we are presenting to the world? Can it cater lasting happiness and honest relationships?
In this first volume of Yoga Stories, Gauranga Das takes you on an inner journey to explore your inner self, beyond the hills of expectation, through the valleys of disapprovals and beneath the layers of self-deception. Thus, bringing you closer to the home of your heart, enabling you to open the door and introduce yourself, to finally meet, the real you.
Wanderers, Kings, Merchants
One of India’s most incredible and enviable cultural aspects is that every Indian is bilingual, if not multilingual. Delving into the fascinating early history of South Asia, this original book reveals how migration, both external and internal, has shaped all Indians from ancient times. Through a first-of-its-kind and incisive study of languages, such as the story of early Sanskrit, the rise of Urdu, language formation in the North-east, it presents the astounding argument that all Indians are of mixed origins.It explores the surprising rise of English after Independence and how it may be endangering India’s native languages.
Makers of Modern Dalit History
In late-nineteenth-century Kerala, a man flamboyantly rode a villuvandi (bullock cart) along a road. What might sound like a mundane act was, at that time, a defiant form of protest. Riding animal-pulled vehicles was a privilege enjoyed only by the upper castes. This man, hailing from the untouchable Pulaya community, was attacking caste-based discrimination through his act. He was none other than Ayyankali, a social reformer and activist.
Featuring several such inspiring accounts of individuals who tirelessly battled divisive forces all their lives, this book seeks to enhance present-day India’s imagination and shape its perception of
the Dalit community. Based on original research on historical and contemporary figures such as
B.R. Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram, Gurram Jashuva, K.R. Narayanan, Soyarabai and Rani Jhalkaribai, among many others, Makers of Modern Dalit History will be a significant addition to the Dalit discourse. This definitive volume on some of the foremost Dalit thinkers, both past and present, promises to initiate a much-needed conversation around Dalit identity, history and politics.