Akbar and Birbal
A chance meeting in a forest brings together Akbar and Birbal! This book brings together a selection of exciting stories, along with fascinating historical details about the Mughal court, the emperor and his witty courtier.
Tenali Rama
Ten year-old Sulekha meets TJ on her trip to Hampi, who claims to be a descendant of Tenali Raman, the jester of the Vijayanagar court! Now, through the comic tales of Tenali Raman, Sulekha and her friends explore the rich history of the majestic empire and life in sixteenth-century south India.
Vikram and Vetal
Peace and prosperity for his kingdom or freedom from a tiresome ghost? King Vikramaditya’s justice is put to the test! Deep-dive into the tale of a Vetal testing King Vikramaditya famed sense of justice! In this one, a little girl realizes that the ancient King Vikramaditya’s stories can help her solve her grandmother’s problems as she listens to an old man’s tales in a remote village.
Mulla Nasruddin
As thirteen-year-old Shashank the Sad pores over his math homework, a little doodle appears and Mulla Nasruddin-MN to his friends-comes alive! MN’s never-ending stream of stories enthralls Shashank but make him wonder if his new friend is completely crazy. Then one day, Shashank finds himself trapped in a magic grid. Is there a connection between MN’s madcap stories and a way out of the grid?
Vikramaditya’s Throne
Tales of generosity, wisdom and justice come alive in an obscure town and King Vikramaditya helps little Upa recover her smile! When Upa’s father gets kidnapped, she and her mother move to her great-grandmother’s house in a small town. There the dejected duo are befriended by an odd-looking stranger who insists on telling them stories of King Vikramaditya and his long-lost throne. As Upa and her mother listen to these magical stories they begin to see the goodness in the people around them and recognize the relevance of the tales of King Vikramaditya in their lives.
Durga, as this powerful warrior-goddess is known,
Has nine special forms-each one unique, not just a clone.
Shailaputri, Brahmacharini and Chandraghanta,
Kushmanda and Skandamata,
Katyayani and Kaalratri,
Maha Gauri and Siddhidatri . . .
They are the Nava Durga,
Worshipped during Navaratri,
The festival of nine nights and nine days
That’s celebrated across India and the world in myriad ways
To praise the goddesses and their glory.
This is their story!
How many names does Arjuna have?
Why was Yama cursed?
What lesson did a little mongoose teach Yudhisthira?
The Kurukshetra war, fought between the Kauravas and the Pandavas and which forced even the gods to take sides, may be well known, but there are innumerable stories set before, after and during the war that lend the Mahabharata its many varied shades and are largely unheard of. Award-winning author Sudha Murty reintroduces the fascinating world of India’s greatest epic through the extraordinary tales in this collection, each of which is sure to fill you with a sense of wonder and bewilderment.
‘Everyone in the world has an opinion of me! I do not expect them to change. I accept life as it comes!’
There are few who can claim to have lived life on their own terms like the irrepressible, honest, bold and charming Ma Anand Sheela. Yet, controversy continues to follow her even today. Whether it be her portrayal in Wild Wild Country, or the Osho International Foundation’s take on the Netflix series, a wide spectrum of opinions has cloaked the real Sheela for too long. In the 1980s, she was the personal secretary of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the manager of the Rajneesh commune in Wasco County, Oregon, USA. She was eventually sentenced to prison, where she served her time and walked out after three years. Adored and vilified at the same time by the world, she has seen it all-from rebuilding her life from scratch to being interviewed by Karan Johar on her grand return to India in 2019. More than three decades later, she is still in love with Bhagwan and his teachings. In By My Own Rules, Ma Anand Sheela bares it all-her lessons, her beliefs, her inspiration and the eighteen rules that define her life.
Did the mongols really drink horse’s blood?
What was the one thing that made the mighty Genghis Khan tremble in his boots?
Why did Mongol soldiers wear silk underwear and leather soaked in horse wee?
What made Genghis Khan’s international spy network so super-sneaky? Armed with an intriguing tale, fabulously foul facts, wonderfully wacky illustrations and our time-travelling commentator Yakkety Yak’s appalling jokes, Nayanika Mahtani sets out to explore whether Genghis Khan really was the evil villain that he is often made out to be.
Prepare for a riveting, rip-roaring read-packed with unusual surprises!
990 CE, Tanjore, India
Twelve-year-old Raji is growing up during the reign of Rajaraja Chola in south India. Raji is a girl of spirit–brave, bright and bold. She is also a dancer, a warrior and a sculptor who models kingdoms in stone. Raji, however is not happy: she misses her family. Her mother is in exile and her father has left home in grief.
On a dark night as a storm rages, Raji rescues a Chinese sailor at sea. This sets off a chain of events with unforeseen consequences.
A Shiva statue goes missing, a prince disappears and there is a murder inside a temple. As Raji and her friends, the prince Rajendra Chola and his cousin, Ananta, try to help the Chinese mariner, they realize that he may have some of the answers Raji has been looking for.
Will the Criminals be brought to justice?
Will Raji’s family be reunited once again?
Will peace be restored to the mighty Chola Kingdom?
It all began with the fall of a meteorite and the crater it made. In its centre was a red notebook, sticking out of the ground—the first (or was it really the last?) of Professor Shonku’s diaries.
Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku, eccentric genius and scientist, disappeared without a trace after he shot off into space in a rocket from his backyard in Giridih, accompanied by his loyal but not-too-intelligent servant Prahlad, his cat Newton, and Bidhushekhar, his robot with an attitude.
What has become of the professor? Has he decided to stay on in Mars, his original destination? Or has he found his way to some other planet and is living there with strange companions? His last diary tells an incredible story . . . Other diaries unearthed from his abandoned laboratory reveal stranger and even more exciting adventures involving a ferocious sadhu, a revengeful mummy and a mad scientist in Norway who turns famous men into six-inch statues.
Exciting, imaginative and funny, the stories in this collection capture the sheer magic of Ray’s lucid language, elegant style, graphic descriptions and absurd humour. The indomitable Professor Shonku has returned, to win himself over a whole new band of followers!
A murder in an elevator. A trail of heady perfume. The nanasaheb’s priceless naulakha necklace.
Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu are in Bombay where Jatayu’s latest book is being filmed under the title Jet Bahadur. Soon after Jatayu hands over a package to a man in a red shirt, a murder takes place in the high-rise where the producer lives. Feluda and his companions find themselves in the midst of one of their most thrilling adventures ever, with a hair-raising climax aboard a train during location shooting
Guru Dutt is probably the only Indian film-maker who, within the parameters of the box office, made a personal statement with his cinema. His films stand testimony not only to his own genius but also to the creativity of his team, comprising stalwarts like cameraman V.K. Murthy, music director S.D. Burman and writer Abrar Alvi, among others. In Ten Years with Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi’s Journey, Sathya Saran looks at the tumultuous yet incredibly fecund relationship between the mercurial director and his equally talented, albeit unsung, writer-a partnership that evolved over a decade until Dutt’s tragic death in 1964. Starting his career as a driver and chaperone to Dutt’s producer on the sets of Baaz, Abrar soon caught the attention of the director with his sharp ear for and understanding of film dialogue. With Aar Paar in 1954, Abrar rewrote the rules of dialogue-writing in Hindi cinema, until then marked by theatricality and artificiality. He followed it up with masterpieces like Mr and Mrs 55, Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, before donning the director’s mantle with great success in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Brimming with lively anecdotes on how Abrar honed his skills by writing more than 300 love letters; how an accident involving a buffalo led to the discovery of Waheeda Rehman; and Guru Dutt’s visit to a kotha to get the ambience right for Pyaasa, this acclaimed book is a warm and insightful look at two remarkable artistes who inspired each other to create movie magic.
There is a kind of brotherhood between man and mountains…. The inescapable logic of desire leaves the mountain traveller no choice but to plan his next expedition to the very peak that may have just rejected vociferously the most singleminded of advances.’ In his thirty-year sojourn in India, Bill Aitken has had two serious affairs”one, essentially spiritual in nature, with the country’s rivers, the other more earthy and passionate, with her mountains. In this sequel to his first book for Penguin, Seven Sacred Rivers, he talks of his second great obsession”Nanda Devi, patron Goddess of Kumaon and Garhwal. Spanning more than a decade, from the Seventies to the Eighties, Aitken’s attempts to explore the sanctuary of this most beautiful of Himalayan peaks were not, he admits, those of a professional mountaineer, but of a romantic. Accordingly, what he gives us is, in his own words, -neither a book about Himalayan climbing nor a treatise on hill theology but a diary of mountain relish.’ Aitken’s deep-seated study of the cult of the Goddess and the folklore and customs of the Kumaon Himalayas is chequered with deliciously acerbic asides on bumptious bureaucrats, the bane of Indian mountaineering, while the true nature lover’s concern for the environment is manifest in his anger over the destruction wrought by political motivations and the ambitions of so-called professional mountaineers.
