Want to cook Italian food but terrified by the complicated recipes? Exasperated because you can’t find the right ingredients? Wish you could eat chilli with your pasta?
Ritu Dalmia, chef and owner of Diva, Delhi’s most beloved Italian restaurant, teaches you how to cook authentic, delicious Italian food in your kitchen that will have you begging for more. She tells you how and what to cook, from show-off dinner parties to a romantic supper à deux, from sharing your table with friends to cosying up on the sofa watching TV. Ritu writes of how regions in Italy differ in their cooking style, what wine to pair with what food, how to adapt Indian ingredients to Italian cooking, and also provides an updated list of suppliers in all the metros. Stylishly designed, with stunning photography, Italian Khana will be your guru and best friend in the kitchen.
In late nineteenth century Lucknow, two rival story-tellers, Syed Muhammad Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar, wrote a fantasy in the Urdu language whose equal had not been heard before, and which has never been rivalled since. It was called Tilism-e Hoshruba. The writers claimed that the tale had been passed down to them from story-tellers going back centuries: it was a part of the beloved oral epic, The Adventures of Amir Hamza which had come to the Indian subcontinent via Persia and had gained in popularity during the reign of Akbar, the Mughal emperor.
The Tilism-e-Hoshruba is the subcontinent’s first wholly indigenous Indo-Islamic fantasy epic. It tells the stories of Amir Hamza’s military forces, his grandson and his loyal band of tricksters (masters of wit and disguise) as they go to war with Afrasiyab, the sorcerer who rules the magical land of Hoshruba. Fantasy, the occult, adventure and romance play themselves out in a typically Indian setting as wizards, sorceresses, tricksters and royalty pitch themselves into the battle for Hoshruba. The characters of the epic are marvels of literary creation, and are much more colourful and dashing than those of the Amir Hamza cycle of tales.
The Tilism-e Hoshruba runs to twenty four volumes and will be translated into English for the first time ever by Musharraf Ali Farooqi, the acclaimed translator of The Adventures of Amir Hamza. Random House India will publish all the volumes starting with Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, i.e. Book 1 of the series.
Here is food that is refined, inventive, and full of startling flavours: sandalwood infused tandoori chicken breast, king prawns with saffron almond sauce, clove smoked roast rump of lamb with corn, asparagus, curried avocado and beetroot salad, Hyderabadi style aubergine steaks with coconut rice, roganjosh pie, pan seared Kolkata betki with bottle gourd stir fry and fenugreek sauce, steamed mango idlis with wild berry sorbet, saffron poached pear with cinnamon ice cream.
A fresh, glamourous, and utterly creative approach, Cinnamon Club blends western techniques and presentation with the best of traditional Indian cuisine. Beautifully designed and photographed, it will become an instant classic and a book that will inspire many extraordinary meals.
Freewheeling Mimlu Sen lives in Paris, where one day she witnesses an electrifying performance by three Bauls, mystic minstrels from Bengal, who spin like pillars of dust. Their music inspires her to return to Calcutta, and to go on an extraordinary journey with one of them, Paban Das Baul, from her respectable home in the city to his humble village, and further on, into the verdant Bengali countryside that is their common heritage.
Paban takes Mimlu through the itinerant Baul’s route—from the festival at Kenduli with its marathon performances, to tranquil Shantiniketan, where Bauls frequently stop en route and disrupt quotidian life; Agrodwip, deep in the Vaishnava world, to Nabasana, where mesmerizing guru Hari Goshain presides over Baul games and ultimately, her initiation; and to Boral, where she holds her own big Baul festival, a mahatsava. Along the way, she encounters tantrics and tribals, exorcisms and witch sightings, catfish that climb trees and esoteric sexo-yogic secrets—and she falls in love.
Baulsphere takes you into the heart of rural Bengal, and into the fascinating world of the Bauls. Passionate, enthralling and searingly lyrical, it is a stunning book.
For four teenagers, the Ramayana is not just a tale. It is their fate!
In every life they have ever lived, Vikram, Amanjit, Rasita and Deepika have been persecuted and killed by Ravindra, who aspires to the throne of Ravana the Demon-King.
Now Rasita is a captive of Ravindra, and demonic beings thought to be mythical are rallying to him. His triumph seems inevitable. Vikram and Amanjit must rescue her. This time, failure is not an option. This time, if Ravindra wins, it will be forever.
But slowly, pieces are falling into place. Why are they reliving the Ramayana? Who was Ravana? Where is the real Lanka? Age-old mysteries are uncovered and forgotten powers regained, as the quest to end the tyranny of Ravindra moves towards a finale that is as startling as it is electrifying.
Every moment it seeks to slip from the mind’s nook
Fresh poetic meaning is a gazelle to be captured
The Captured Gazelle is an elegant and lucent translation of the poems of the seventeenth-century Persian poet Mulla Tahir Ghani, better known as Ghani Kashmiri. Eulogized by poets such as Mir and Iqbal, Ghani is an outstanding representative of sabk-e-Hindi or the ‘Indian style’ in Persian poetry, which became a hallmark of the Mughal-Safavid literary culture.
The introduction situates Ghani against his unique background in which Iranian and Indian poetic cultures came together to create a glorious literary age in Kashmir, while the translations capture Ghani in his wide spectrum of moods-satirical, playful, self-pitying, pessimistic, mystically resigned-bringing alive his wit and ingenuity in a modern idiom without losing hold on the tone.
Cambridge-educated Sir Saraswati Chandra Ranbakshi is a towering public figure in early twentieth century India. A firm believer in the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, he also has faith in the virtues of the British Raj. As a result, he has to mediate between the Maharaja of a princely state and the Viceroy and strike a fine balance between tradition and modernity. This tussle between old and new values is reflected in his three children, the daredevil Maneka, the timid Sita, and their brother, Yogendra, who turns their father’s world upside down by falling in love with a lower-caste girl.
A comedy of manners laced with intrigue and excitement, The Tailor’s Needle explores some of the great moral dilemmas of pre-independent India with wit and sensitivity.
‘It is the first duty of kingship to be as the people wish to see me.’
This fictional account of events in the court of the princely state of Bhanupur, a hundred years ago, is a tale of intrigue, politics and image-building. What was going through the mind of Maharaja Amar Singh II in the key moments of his reign? How much did he rely on the advice of his clever prime minister Chatterjee, the wily Bengali? How did he solve sensitive issues like undertaking a voyage across the seas to attend the coronation ceremony of the British king, without polluting his caste? And what were his relations with the British—especially with Dr Constable and the architect Colonel Talbot, employed by his court? As the narrative moves towards its tragic conclusion, the characters’ innermost convictions are laid bare
Srinivas, an elderly Brahmin, has been living in a south London suburb for thirty years. After the death of his son, and later of his wife, this lonely man is befriended by an englishwoman in her sixties, whom he takes into his home. The two form a deep and abiding relationship. But the haven they have created for themselves proves to be a fragile one. Racist violence enters their world and Srinivas’s life changes irrevocably—as does his dream of England as a country of tolerance and equality.
Kamala Markandaya was one of India’s most politically acute and prescient novelists. In this troubling and compassionate story, originally published in 1973, she foreshadows many of the issues of diaspora and race that we face in today’s world.
Three stories-one of a demi-god, a Swamiji on trial for murdering his followers, the other, of a young law graduate, racked by nightmares and Fits, and that of a judge whose entire family is threatened because he is presiding on the Swami’s case-come together in strange ways… …and raise a few questions:
Where is the Swami’s wife, the only witness to the case? Why does the young man not respond to treatment? Why does every judge die or leave soon after he takes up the Swamiji’s case?
The mystery slowly begins to unravel as the story progresses and out tumbles a shocking tale of horror, black magic and hypnotism…
