Atisa is back! This time in his time-travel balloon!
Young Atisa thought he was all set for a cushy ride on Daedalus s balloon to join his mother Gaea in Central Asia. But Danyi, a warrior from the Chinese Emperor s court, a fierce Gobi blizzard and a mysterious white horse compel him to cross paths with Hieun Tsang, the famed monk and traveller who is on his way to King Harshavardhan s court. It soon becomes clear that Hieun Tsang is a hunted man, and despite Atisa s invaluable assistance, the situation only becomes ever more dangerous. Sea pirates, several assassination attempts, friends who cannot be trusted somebody is determined to make sure that he never returns to China. Who is the implacable enemy that seeks to harm Hieun Tsang? Will Atisa find the courage needed to defeat the dark forces? Will he reach China safe with the knowledge so arduously collected? Join Atisa and the great monk on their fantastic adventures across 7th century Central Asia and India.
a broken-hearted Kaushik arrives in the small, sleepy town of Valai, leaving his disturbing past behind. And even as Valai proves to be anything but slow and laid-back, with all its scandals and rumour-mongering, Kaushik falls in love again – this time with Vivek. However, the rush of love he feels for this young, innocent village boy is not without it sdilemmas; is it the right thing to do? would Vivek understand if Kaushik tells him the truth about his sexuality? As his love becomes an obsession, life turns into a game of manipulation for Kaushik. Until destiny intervenes and takes him on a course that he neither has any control over nor is able to change. Vivek and I is a powerful novel about sexuality, falling in love and learning to let go.
Follow Fotikchand’s adventures through the colourful and dangerous streets of Kolkata in this action-packed thriller!An eleven-year-old boy; Bablu; gets kidnapped by four goons. As they make their escape in a stolen car; they meet with an accident and two of the goons die on the spot while the boy loses consciousness. The two surviving kidnappers; presuming the boy to be dead; leave him stranded.When Bablu regains consciousness; he realizes he has lost his memory. In his wanderings; he befriends a street juggler; Harun; who gives him shelter and introduces him to a new way of life. Bablu; now called Fotik; spends his days working in a tea shop; while his evenings are spent assisting Harun on his street shows. Gradually they develop a bond that makes them inseparable till one day the kidnappers spot Fotik; and Harun and he are forced to be on the run again.On the Run with Fotikchand is a thrilling story of everlasting friendship. Riveting and racy; it’ll have you turning the pages till the end.
‘Thirteen-year-old Atiya will win the hearts of young readers. Although physically handicapped; her adventurous spirit takes her on lonely rambles into the wildlife sanctuary. She knows the ways of the jungle and its creatures great and small. A charming story; full of incident and good feeling. Atiya’s flute has a special magic of its own.’-Ruskin Bond
Atiya Sardare lives with her dad, a forest officer. An only child, afflicted by polio, she finds solace and peace in the jungle, exploring it on short, secret, often dangerous treks. On one occasion she hears the haunting notes of a flute. It gives her goose bumps. She vows to learn to play the instrument much against her father’s wishes. Her music lessons bring her close to the grouchy old anthropologist, Ogre Uncle, and his Kurumba tribal daughter, Mishora. Atiya’s gift transforms her father’s view, it calms the rogue elephant, Rangappa and helps nurture a blossoming friendship between a teenage boy and girl. A moving, tender, and mesmerizing tale, Flute in the Forest has wonderful incidents based on the real-life experiences of the author.
‘I want to play a game with you.’
‘A game?’
‘Yes. Hope I can trust you.’
‘Of course.’
She handed over a small envelope and said; ‘Open this the day I tell you to. And if you open it earlier; I will come to know about it.’
‘What is in it?’
‘A time bomb.’
Aarav will do anything to get to the top of his organization. He will betray his colleagues; submit incorrect reports; sleep with the sexy and crafty Sonali; even abandon his disapproving wife in the middle of a romantic trip to London. Sonali uses his ambitious streak; promising to take him right to where he wants to be; if he does what she says.
In his mad scramble to the top; does Aarav know what he is getting into?
Is it as rosy up there as he imagined?
What is Sonali’s real game?
With or without You is for all those who have struggled to keep their jobs from ruining their lives.
“I was told that your lives were in danger,’ Badruddin said. ‘Our lives are still in danger,’ Mike said, ‘because the people we’re with are unlikely to set us free unless we give them what they want.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘The treasure, the amanat–that’s what everybody is after,’ Noor said. Terrorist violence and a nightmare drive Shamsuddin Bandey, head priest of a shrine in Aishmuqam village in Jammu and Kashmir, to find out more about some of the 300-year-old scrolls kept in his family’s custody for generations. But his actions arouse the suspicions of a top bureaucrat and a history professor. The corrupt duo believe the scrolls may point the way to a vast, buried treasure— and they will stop at nothing to get it. Elsewhere, militants break into a museum in Srinagar and steal valuable artefacts to fund their war against India. They also kidnap a woman scientist. Along the way, others are drawn into the action: Michael Zutshi, an American professor nostalgic about his childhood spent in Kashmir, and Ashok Dalela, a CBI officer on the trail of the masterminds behind the illegal trade in antiques. A gripping thriller set in a time of trouble, Close Call in Kashmir will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Subhas Chandra Bose opposed Gandhi on several occasions, was at times also a bitter rival of Nehru, and waged war against Mountbatten. This is his story, and that of the alternative, armed struggle for Indian independence that he came to stand for –a story of the freedom struggle that ran in parallel and that left behind many heroes.
‘Give me blood and I will give you freedom.’ Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s words are deeply etched in the minds of millions of Indians. A great political thinker and radical nationalist, Netaji played a very active and prominent role in India’s political life. In the 1930s he was a leader of the Indian National Congress, and later of the Indian National Army (INA), during World War II. Read the mesmerizing account of the life of this charismatic leader whose only dream was to see his beloved motherland free from foreign rule.
This compelling biography gives us insightful details about Netaji’s legendary life, and throws light on his mysterious death in 1945. A shining example of leadership, integrity, sacrifice and valour, Netaji continues to inspire young readers even today.
In Moazzamabad, UP, too large to be a town and too backward to be a city, a young man stabs a police inspector and is beaten to death. The last words he speaks are, ‘My name is Jimmy the Terrorist.’ Journalists descend on the town, ‘like shrill birds’, and a long-time resident decides to tell a story that none of them will know.
Jimmy was once Jamaal, son of Rafiq Ansari of Rasoolpur Mohalla, a Muslim neighbourhood in a Hindu town. And his story goes back a long way: to the time when Moazzamabad was named, after Aurangzeb’s son; when Rafiq was seduced by the wealth and refinements of Shabbir Manzil and married Shaista; when the Hanuman temple grew ten storeys high and the head priest was elected mayor; when Shaista died, a mosque was brought down in Ayodhya and Rafiq became a mullah. As Jamaal grows up, watching both his father and his neighbourhood change and curfew reach Moazzamabad, he is changed himself. He becomes Jimmy, one among the countless marginalized trying to find a place in the world, dimly aware that the choices that shape their lives are being made in distant places, where they have no influence.
Shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize 2009, this spare, compelling novel, as intimate as it is political, confirms Omair Ahmad’s reputation as one of the most distinctive and exciting new voices in Indian fiction.
Forgotten tells the stories of women who transcended great tribulation to bring strength and succour to others.
We meet Donna Juliana, a devout Catholic of Portuguese descent, whose influence in the court of the Mughal prince Shah Alam-later Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar I-was so strong that the Dutch, the Portuguese and the British frequently sought her help to get an audience with the ruler.
Similarly, the poetry of the beautiful court poet, singer, song writer and warrior Mahlaqa Bai Chanda was largely ignored by critics for nearly two centuries after her death. At a time when few women could read and write, Mahlaqa received an elaborate education, compiling her first collection of poetry when legendary Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib was just a year old.
The author draws vivid portraits of Chand Sultana, the Ismaili Muslim warrior-princess who defended Ahmadnagar against the Mughal forces of Emperor Akbar, and of two queens of the Deccan, Rudramma Devi and Hayat Bakshi Begum, who exemplified the ability of women rulers to govern well. The aurhor also remembers Radha Bai, a courageous Brahmin child-widow whose lifelong search to call someone her own touched all those she encountered.
Bilkees Latif skilfully merges real and imagined events from the lives and times of these extraordinary but forgotten women, to restore to them their place in the annals of history.
