The Definitive Biography of Laurie Baker
Laurie Baker has worked in India for over forty years and is renowned for being one of the very few architects in the world to have designed and built buildings as diverse as fishermen’s huts, computer institutes, auditoriums, film studios and tourist centres. His distinctive brand of architecture, usually moulded around local building traditions (especially those of Kerela, his adopted home state in south India), is instantly identifiable and has, unsurprisingly, revolutionized traditional concepts of architecture in India. Baker’s architecture is responsive, uses local materials and lays stress on low-cost design.
This biograpy of Laurie Baker, like his work, is direct, simple and comprehensive; further embellished with sketches, plans, photographs and some of Baker’s own writings, the book offers the professional architect view of the life, methods and thoughts of an unorthodox genius.
Jalauddin and his men are back in India, and within the next few weeks they will shake you and Kashmir like nothing before.’ With barely three months to go for the American President’s visit to India, Major Vijay Kaul learns of an incredible plot hatched by a rogue faction of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most lethal terrorist organizations. Afghanistan-trained militant Jalauddin has entered India with only one aim—to destroy any hope of lasting peace in Kashmir. The security forces race against time, trying frantically to foil the plot. But even as they employ their best men and resources to track down Jalauddin, there is something far more sinister brewing—a meticulously planned operation to unleash chaos and bring India to her knees. Highly charged and brilliantly plotted, The Srinagar Conspiracy is the first thriller to be set against the backdrop of the insurgency in Kashmir. Expertly blending fact with fiction, the book describes the rise of militancy in Kashmir over the past decade and a half, and tells the human story of those whose lives were shaped by events beyond their control and whose actions could now decide the fate of the subcontinent.
Shashi Deshpande’s latest novel explores the lives of two women, one obsessed with music and the other a passionate believer in Communism, who break away from their families to seek fulfillment in public life. Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay. Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela’s niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai’s home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son Aditya, Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, find a way out of her own grief.
A hard-boiled, fast-paced narrative about sexual and political corruption in contemporary India Ajit Vajpayee is a drifter. A confused Marxist and a voyeur, his is a life of little action and desperate thoughts—about political ideology, violence and sex. One empty afternoon in Lucknow, a mysterious man who knows his darkest secrets and shares his disillusionment with women offers him an opportunity for adventure: he must spy on a minister’s wife, a woman, he is told, with a genius for deception. The unlikely mission takes Ajit to Bombay and Bihar, and he finds himself hopelessly caught up in a murky world of low politics, high crime and twisted carnality. An erotic thriller set against the backdrop of caste conflicts, mafia intrigue and the amorality of a modern world driven purely by ambition and wealth, The Minister’s Wife is a racy and rewarding read.
The Funniest Jokes in the World brings together hundreds of jokes and epigrams—collected over several decades from all around the world—that are guaranteed to tickle the funny bone and brighten up the dullest of days.
Caste, and caste-based discrimination, are not just Indian issues. They are experienced throughout the world, from Britain to Bahrain, Canada to South Africa. This is a global phenomenon, demanding global solutions.
Leading scholar Suraj Milind Yengde shines a light on the Dalit experience internationally, from indentured labourers in the nineteenth-century Caribbean to present-day migrant workers in the Middle East. Combining history, ethnography and archival research, he offers a compelling, comparative approach to caste and race from ancient times to today. What have been the impacts of colonialism, religion and nationalism on caste-based hierarchies worldwide? What can we learn from caste-related movements in India and internationally? Why hasn’t the South Asian diaspora embraced the anti-caste struggles of the homeland? And what are the limits of Dalit–Black solidarity?
Exploring the global footprint of the anti-caste struggle—from its links with Black Lives Matter to the work of international Ambedkarite organisations—this is a powerful analysis of world politics from the perspective of one of the most oppressed communities on Earth. Asking probing questions about the nature of inequality, Yengde issues an energetic call for a cosmopolitan Dalit universalism, as a vital part of today’s fight for social justice and equality.
Dandin’s work as a novelist, poet and pioneering theorist of literary style has secured for him an important place in classical Sanskrit literature. He lived in Kanchi, near present-day Chennai, in the period c. AD 650–750, during the Pallava rule. The Dasa Kumara Charitam is a prose romance recounting the exploits of Prince Rajavahana and his nine companions. Its colourful tales of adventure are notable for their ironic humour, amoral outlook and uninhibited descriptions of contemporary life and manners. A remarkable feature of the stories is the geographical sweep of their action, ranging from present-day Punjab to Kerala, Gujarat to Assam and all the way to the islands of the Indian Ocean. Also remarkable is the rich variety of characters and situations. Dandin vivifies each personage, major and minor, and provides lively accounts of assassinations, executions, dance festivals and royal assemblies, describes at length the training of a courtesan, and even the tools for burgling a house. Even though Tales of the Ten Princes can be enjoyed for its absorbing stories alone, it is also a wonderfully detailed sociological account of an important age in ancient India.
A haunting collection of stories from the master of suspense and intrigue, this book showcases some of Satyajit Ray’s memorable explorations into the twilight territories of the peculiar and supernatural.
A rare collection of essays that invites the reader to revisit a
vanished era of sahibs and memsahibs. From Lord Mountbatten to Peggy Holroyde to Maurice and Taya Zinkin, Britishers who lived
and worked in India reminisce about topics and points of interest as varied as the Indian Civil Service and the Roshanara Club, shikar
and hazri, the Amateur Cine Society of India and the Doon School,
Rudyard Kipling and Mahatma Gandhi.
Selected from a series of articles commissioned by Khushwant Singh when he was the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, these
delightfully individualistic and refreshingly candid writings reveal
a fascinating array of British attitudes, experiences, observations, fond memories, the occasional short-lived grouse and, above all, a deep and abiding affection and respect for India.
The women in this book are not extraordinary or famous, and yet their stories and testimonies, narrated here by one of India’s best-known women journalists, provide a passionate, often deeply touching, revelation of what it means to be a woman in India today.
The women tell of marriage and widowhood, unfair work practices, sexual servitude, the problems of bearing and rearing children in poverty, religion, discrimination, other forms of exploitation…Yet they also talk of fulfilling relationships, the joys of marriage and children, the exhilaration of breaking free from the bonds of tradition, ritual, caste, religion…Interwoven with all this isi the story of one woman’s journey—-of how Anees Jung, the author, brought up in Purdah, succeeded in shaking off the restricting influences of her traditional upbringing to become a highly successful, independent career woman, still a comparatively rare phenomenon in India.
As such, the book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the women of India—the silent majority that is now beginning to make itself heard.
The women in this book are not extraordinary or famous, and yet their stories and testimonies, narrated here by one of India’s best-known women journalists, provide a passionate, often deeply touching, revelation of what it means to be a woman in India today.
The women tell of marriage and widowhood, unfair work practices, sexual servitude, the problems of bearing and rearing children in poverty, religion, discrimination, other forms of exploitation…Yet they also talk of fulfilling relationships, the joys of marriage and children, the exhilaration of breaking free from the bonds of tradition, ritual, caste, religion…Interwoven with all this isi the story of one woman’s journey—-of how Anees Jung, the author, brought up in Purdah, succeeded in shaking off the restricting influences of her traditional upbringing to become a highly successful, independent career woman, still a comparatively rare phenomenon in India.
As such, the book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the women of India—the silent majority that is now beginning to make itself heard.
