How low will you stoop to fulfil your dreams?
Jeet Roy, a college Casanova, has published a book by unfair means.
All he wants is to earn loads of money and have hot girls chase after him
wherever he goes!
Rohit Sehdev, a one-book-old popular fiction writer is furious when he
finds out that his publisher has cheated him out of his royalties.
Karun Ahuja is a highly ambitious schoolboy who wants to win the heart
his lady love by writing a novel about it. And he doesn’t mind playing dirty
to get to the top.
Ruthlessly exploiting these ambitious young men is their unscrupulous
publisher.
Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, Paperback Dreams is the story of
a new breed of young writers who will do anything to get famous, fast.
Archives: Books
Ghalib Danger
Kamran Khan is a cocky young taxi driver trying to make it big in Mumbai.
But his life transforms when he saves a don called Mirza from being
killed. What seems like a good deed however has a cruel payback and
in a single moment, Kamran loses everything dear to him. This is when
Mirza, in gratitude, takes Kamran under his wing and the young man gets
drawn into the mafia boss’s dangerous world of cops and rival gangsters,
eventually taking over from him.
Kamran also inherits Mirza’s philosophy that all of life’s problems can be
solved through Ghalib¹s poetry.
Soon, the innocent taxi driver has cops, criminals and even cabinet
ministers at his beck and call.
And he has a new name—Ghalib Danger.
Face To Face
Blind since the age of four, Ved Mehta led a lonely and turbulent childhood
in India until he was accepted to the Arkansas School for the Blind, to which
he flew alone at fifteen. America and the school changed his life, leading
to degrees at Oxford and Harvard Universities and a fruitful writing career.
Face to Face (1957), Mehta’s first book, is the author’s autobiography
touching upon childhood, blindness and remaking himself. It remains one
of his most beloved works.
Daddyji
Daddyji is, at first glance, a biographical portrait of Amolak Ram Mehta,
a distinguished Indian public-health officer, written by his son Ved
Mehta, but in reality, as the story unfolds, it is seen to be a recreation,
in crystalline detail, of a whole world—the everyday life of pre-Partition
Lahore. Daddyji (1972) is the first book in Mehta’s extraordinary series of
memoirs, Continents of Exile.
A Convenient Culprit
Ace crime journalist Joy Dutta is killed, and his arch rival, Jagruti Verma,
is accused of using her alleged connection with the dreaded don Chikna
Ramu to commit the murder. Their mentor and ex-boss, Ammar Aney,
whose exposés had earned him the respect of his fraternity, and whose
enemies had conspired to destroy his personal and professional life, is
forced out of retirement to get justice for both Joy and Jagruti. As he
delves deeper, Aney realizes that the culprits and their motives are more
dangerous than he could have ever imagined.
Moving To Goa
Many people dream of escaping the stresses and strains of urban life and moving to Goa. Katharina Kakar and her husband, the psychoanalyst and writer Sudhir Kakar, followed their dream and boldly took that plunge-buying a charming old house in a tranquil south Goa village, where they hoped to find a whole new way of living and working. Ten years later, they are still there, living the idyll-and the reality-of life in Goa. So which is the real Goa? Is it all about sun and sand, beaches and bikinis, feni and vindaloo? This book captures the allure of all these, as well as the festivals and rituals that punctuate the rhythm of village life. It portrays fascinating local characters, ranging from ageing hippies, beach boys and elusive workmen to the aristocratic residents of Goa’s grand old mansions. But it also reveals lesser-known aspects of Goa: the hidden-often shocking-histories of its colonial past; and the debates and fissures that engage and divide Goan society today. In part personal memoir and travelogue, in part an insightful look at Goan history and society, this book portrays Goa with all its paradoxes and problems, its seductive pleasures and, above all, its unique and enduring charm.
Conversations With Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan is among Time’s ‘100 Best Movies Ever’; and Roja launched A.R. Rahman. This book, unique to Indian cinema, illuminates the genius of the man behind these and eighteen other masterly films. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, about his art, as well as his life before films.
In these freewheeling conversations—candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative—many aspects of his films are explored. Ratnam elaborates in a personal vein on his choice of themes, from the knottiness in urban relationships (Agni Natchatiram) to the rents in the national fabric (Bombay); his directing of children (Anjali); his artful use of songs; his innovative use of lighting; as also his making of films in Hindi and other languages. There are fond recollections of collaborations with stalwarts like Balu Mahendra, P.C. Sreeram, Thotta Tharrani and Gulzar, among many others. And delectable behind-the-scenes stories—from the contrasting working styles of the legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja and Rahman to the unexpected dimensions Kamal Haasan brought to the filming of Nayakan to what Raavan was like when originally conceived. In short, like Mani Ratnam’s films, Conversations surprises, entertains and stimulates.
With Rangan’s personal and impassioned introduction setting the Tamil and national context of the films, and with posters, script pages and numerous stills, this book is a sumptuous treat for serious lovers of cinema as well as the casual moviegoer looking for a peek behind the process.
Suki
In Suki, fabulist Suniti Namjoshi weaves a delightful tapestry from threads of longing, loss, memory, metaphor, and contemplation. The whole picture is a stunning evocation of the love and friendship shared between S and her Super Cat, Suki, a lilac Burmese. Suki suggests that she could be a goddess, and S her high priestess. S declines, but as they discuss the merits of vegetarianism, or the meaning of happiness, or morality, or just daily life, it soon becomes clear that the bond between them is a deep and complex one. The days of Suki’s life are figured as leaves, which fall vividly but irrevocably into time’s stream and are recollected with a wild tenderness by grieving S, who learns through the disciplines of meditation how to lose what is most loved. This beautiful narrative, both memoir and elegy, offers solace and celebration to everyone who has felt the trust that passes between a person and a beloved creature.
The World In My Hands
Struggling newspaper-editor Hissam is finding it harder and harder to pretend that believing in your work is just as satisfying as landing a big promotion. His old college friend Kaiser has fared considerably better as one of the city’s wealthiest property developers, who also happens to be married to the woman of Hissam’s dreams. Hissam’s chance to strike it big presents itself in the form of a military-backed Emergency that upends the country’s social order. Choosing to back different sides, Hissam and Kaiser find themselves trading places in a way that changes their relationship, and their lives, forever.
This richly satirical novel heralds a major new voice from Bangladesh.
Indian Tango
‘To say that, in fact, writing has been no more than a way of talking about the body and nothing but the body…’
Lost to the meaning of her life, a foreign writer arrives in Delhi seeking the wordless company of strangers. Delhi is an exploded sun, bleeding everywhere its untrammelled chaos: the feral dampness of bus fumes; the suicidal rush of scooters; the autorickshaw seats impregnated with thousands of odours—nauseous accretions of India’s muddy human tide. The men with their stinking bidis rule as masters and the women remain walled in by centuries of tradition. The author, infatuated by a quiet lady on the street, begins to seek the untamed and undiscovered country that lies below her sari, the delicate throbbing hidden beneath her silence. As she rediscovers her voice and the ability to write a story, and as monsoon arrives, low and heavy-bellied, washing away the concrete barricades of custom, a secret encounter in a music store opens up an ancient darwaza of forbidden pleasures.
Bursting with sharp irreverence, Indian Tango is a story of fleshly transgression and unlikely liberation in the patriachopolis of New Delhi.