Pakistan may be making headlines—but Butterfly is set to conquer the world.
‘Everyone knows me. All of Lahore, all of Karachi, all of Isloo—oho, baba, Islamabad
—half of Dubai, half of London and all of Khan Market and all the nice, nice bearers in Imperial Hotel also…No ball, no party, no dinner, no coffee morning, no funeral, no GT —Get-Together, baba—is complete without me.’
Meet Butterfly, Pakistan’s most lovable, silly, socialite. An avid partygoer, inspired misspeller, and unwittingly acute observer of Pakistani high society, Butterfly is a woman like no other. In her world, SMS becomes S & M and people eat ‘three tiara cakes’ while shunning ‘do number ka maal’. ‘What cheeks!’ as she would say. As her country faces tribulations – from 9/11 to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto—Butterfly glides through her world, unfazed, untouched, and stopped short only by the chip in her manicure. Wicked, irreverent, and hugely entertaining, The Diary of a Social Butterfly gives you a delicious glimpse into the parallel universe of the have-musts.
After freeing her darling son, Jonkers, from the clutches of his low class, slutty secretary, Aunty Pussy has charged Butterfly with finding him a new wife—a rich, fair, beautiful, old family type. Quickly. But who wants to marry poor, plain, die-vorced Jonkers? As Butterfly schemes her way through shaadis, GTs (oho baba, Get Togethers!), and kitty parties trying to find a suitable girl from the right bagground, she discovers to her dismay that her hapless cousin has his own ideas about his perfect mate. And secretly she may even agree!
Full of wit and wickedness, Tender Hooks is another delightful romp through Pakistani high society from the bestselling author of The Diary of a Social Butterfly.
Alice Bhatti has just come out of prison and is looking for a second chance. She’s hungry, tough, and full of fight, but being a Catholic choohra in Karachi means she also needs good luck. A lot of it. Alice’s prayers are answered when she gets a job as Junior Nurse at the Sacred Heart Hospital, a squalid public hospital full of shoot-out victims and homeless drug addicts. There she meets Teddy Butt, a trigger happy, ex-body builder, and a part-time goon for the police. The two could not be further apart and that’s why they fall in love-Teddy with sudden violence, Alice in cautious hope. How will their unlikely romance end?
In A Case of Exploding Mangoes, Mohammed Hanif tore into the corruption of the army and General Zia’s dictatorship; in this novel he draws a dark and compelling portrait of Pakistan today where killers fall in love and lovers are forced to make impossible choices. Written with savage humour and in sizzling prose, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is a tour de force from one of the most brilliant young writers today.
Is the memory of happiness that has passed, sad or happy?
Four middle aged men sit together in a railway station, waiting for dawn to break. To pass their time, each tells a story of a woman they loved secretly in their youth…
Romantic, elegant, suffused with melancholy, My Kind of Girl is a classic love story from one of Bengal’s great writers.
‘God once told me life is absurd. How else can two boys land up in America and not find any girls?’
Karl and Kunal are just two ordinary Mumbai boys who like ordinary things: bunking class, films, food and pornography. Intent on attaining stardom they fly off to the legendary Lee Strasburg Acting Studio to sharpen their craft in acting and in chasing girls. They fail on both counts but come back with a jackpot: their maiden movie role. In Bollywood, they meet Yusuf Khan, who at forty-six is still the undisputed king of college romance. Being losers doesn’t get in their way and soon the trio become a hit team, churning out blockbuster after blockbuster. Before they know it, Karl and Kunal get their own spot boys, the defining moment in every Bollywood actor’s life, feature in an TV commercial with Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, and are even invited to meet Bill Clinton on his visit to India. But all this is not enough for Karl, who knows that it’s really politics which is the ultimate destination for all ‘great’ actors. As Pajama Party’s nominee from south Mumbai, Karl makes his debut as a politician. Will he hit the box office again?
A novel about celebrities, Bollywood and politics, Karl, Aaj aur Kal is a hilarious novel from India’s best known funny man.
Moving from the elegant drawing rooms of Lahore to the mud villages of rural Multan, a powerful collection of short stories about feudal Pakistan.
An impoverished young woman becomes a wealthy relative’s mistress; an electrician on the make confronts his desperate assailant to protect his most prized possession; a farm manager rises far in the world-but his family discovers after his death the transience of power; a maid, who advances herself through sexual favours, unexpectedly falls in love. In these linked stories about the family and household staff of the ageing KK Harouni, we meet masters and servants, landlords and supplicants, politicians and electricians, village women, and Karachi housewives.
Are you stressed?
The workplace has become increasingly competitive, family life has its never-ending complications, and when you step outside, you have to deal with heavy traffic, aggression, and massive pollution. No wonder that you’re tense and agitated, have hyper reflexes and blood pressure that’s higher than the midday sun. But you’re not alone. Fifty percent of Indian professionals suffer from stress with stress-related diseases from depression to lack of fertility drastically on the rise.
In I’m Not Stressed, Deanne Panday, one of the country’s leading health and fitness experts, shares with you her secrets to tackle this looming lifestyle problem. She tells you what stress really means, how to know when you have a serious case of it, and most importantly how to deal with it through a simple plan of diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, and breathing. With advice from leading psychiatrists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and celebrities who have to deal with high-level stress, I’m Not Stressed is your mantra for enduring health and happiness.
When it comes to getting ahead in life, who we know is as important as what we do. How do you draw people to you? Impress the powerful? Make an impact and extend your circle of acquaintances? Cultivate influential friends? Suhel Seth, a man who knows almost everyone there is to know in the country, brings you the ultimate guide to social success. From the secret to throwing a successful party to the benefits of befriending the less important half of a couple, he gives you practical advice and strategies to become a successful networker. Inspiring, provocative, and wise, Get to the Top is the ultimate book about wielding soft power.
2009—year of the slump. America is in the grip of severe economic hardship and unemployment. The only numbers that are on the rise is the suicide rate. Arun Gupta, entrepreneur, lothario, Aramis cologne user, evangelist of new India’s new dreams, sees a glimmer of a business plan form out of the American crisis. He wants to save lives. And he wants to do it sitting in his baroque Navi Mumbai office. His idea is simple. If everything can be outsourced to India, why not the saving of American lives? Part rant, part satire, 1888 Dial India documents, through the politically incorrect words of its anti-hero, the dreams of corporate India.
An exploration of gay identity in South Asia.
From Ashok Row Kavi’s autobiographical piece on growing up gay in Bombay to Vikram Seth’s brilliantly etched account of a homosexual relationship in The Golden Gate, the stories, poems, plays and prose extracts in this collection cover a range of literary styles, themes and sensibilities. Mahesh Dattani’s play Night Queen is significant as one of the first serious attempts at dramatizing homosexuality on the Indian stage; the poems by R. Raj Rao included here are part of a series that formed the basis for the Bollywood film Bomgay; and the poetry of Dinyar Godrej, Adil Jussawalla and Sultan Padamsee is searing in its intensity.
Apart from the pieces written originally in English, there are works translated from Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and other Indian languages, which speak of the agony and the joy of being a man in love with other men. Extracts from the work of well-known writers including Bhupen Khakkar, Kamleshwar and Vishnu Khandekar provide a rare insight into the lives of homosexual men in India s small towns and villages. An extract from Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy details an account of growing up gay in war-torn Sri Lanka, while K.C. Ajay, an illiterate taxi driver, gives us an alternate glimpse of love and friendship in Nepal. Pieces such as these along with the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and Iftikhar Naseem expand the scope of this collection to include writers from South Asia.
With wit, passion and courage, these writings bring to the fore the true meaning of yaraana or male friendship and bonding, an often ignored facet of South Asian life and sexuality.
