The heroic Sinhala king, Duttha Gamini, is aging. His son Saliya, who he hopes will succeed him, has fallen in love with an outcast chandala woman, a union that will cause much outrage in the kingdom. The Maha Thupa, the colossal structure that took eighteen years in the making, is ready to be enshrined in accordance with the divine prophecy-with an urn containing the relics of the Buddha’s bodily remains. However, the urn is in possession of Kala Naga, the serpent king of the resplendent kingdom of the Nagas, where he lives guarding it.
Intrigues of the Lion, the fourth part of the historic Children of the Lion series, traces the decline of the Sinhala empire through a fascinating series of events in Sri Lankan history.
Archives: Books
Lights Out
An inspirational book about one man’s descent into blindness and his fight to live a normal life after it. Lights Out deals with the author’s gradual, incurable, and rather debilitating process of going blind, the impact of slow loss of vision, the total cluelessness of the situation, and how he overcomes the condition. The author suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa, a condition that affects about one in 300 in India and other developing countries. Most patients experience blindness quite suddenly and reel from its impact. The book details the difficulties of trying to live a normal life despite disability and will inspire you to turn your weakness into a source of strength.
How To Keep Your Man Happy
Is your man losing interest in you?
Do you wish to bring the spark back into your love life?
All relationships come with their fair set of challenges—communication gaps, sexual problems, conflict, commitment issues—the list is endless!
From the bestselling author of Beating the Blues: a complete guide to overcoming depression comes a book that will help women combat these challenges and help them learn the secret to attain relationship nirvana. From spotting signs of an unhappy relationship to long-term solutions that make a difference, How to Keep Your Man Happy will help make your man stay put, forever.
Dhandha
It is Hindi translation of english version of Dhandha: How Gujratis Do Business, translated by Shalaka Waimbe in English. Dhandha, meaning business, is a term often used in common trade parlance in India. But there is no other community that fully embodies what the term stands for than the Gujaratis.
Shobha Bondre’s Dhandha is the story of a few such Gujaratis: Jaydev Patel—the New York Life Insurance agent credited with having sold policies worth $2.5 billion so far; Bhimjibhai Patel—one of the country’s biggest diamond merchants and co-founder of the ambitious ‘Diamond Nagar’ in Surat; Dalpatbhai Patel—the motelier who went on to become the mayor of Mansfield County; Mohanbhai Patel—a former Sheriff of Mumbai and the leading manufacturer of aluminium collapsible tubes; and Hersha and Hasu Shah—owners of over a hundred hotels in the US.
Travelling across continents—from Mumbai to the United States—in search of their story and the common values that bond them, Dhandha showcases the powerful ambition, incredible capacity for hard work, and the inherent business sense of the Gujaratis.
Telling Tales
Spanning a writing career of over twenty years, the acclaimed novelist Amit Chaudhuri is also one of the most gifted essayists and critics writing today, whose work has appeared in the pages of many of the most prestigious newspapers and journals in the world, including the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Granta, the Guardian, and the Dublin Review.
Collected here for the first time, Telling Tales is a selection of Chaudhuri’s most enduring short non-fiction that showcases his sense of humour, his idiosyncratic capacity to transform the mundane, his political engagement, and his mastery of words.
From playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ as a child in India to an outsider’s perspective on the British class system to a plane that was hijacked by Pakistani men and taken to Afghanistan at the turn of the millennium to the works of V.S. Naipaul and to the humble Indian savoury the chanachur, these essays display Chaudhuri’s ability to find meaning in every aspect of the physical and intellectual world and will consolidate his reputation as one of the most original and elegant writers publishing in English today.
Mirror City
It is 1973. A newly independent Bangladesh is collapsing under the weight of impending famine, unemployment and political corruption. In the midst of this upheaval, Uma, a Bengali from Calcutta, moves to Dhaka with her husband Iqbal. As the young woman learns to make the new city her home, she faces upheavals of her own. Iqbal is a changed man; their mixed marriage raises too many eyebrows; and the charged atmosphere in Dhaka makes it impossible to trust anyone. Uma has never felt so utterly alone in her life, until she finds herself unexpectedly falling in love.
Mirror City brilliantly captures the turbulent early days of Bangladesh, the slow breakdown of a marriage, and a woman’s search to find herself. Nuanced, atmospheric and full of drama, this is an utterly compelling novel.
Meditation And Mantras
‘A mantra is a mystical energy encased in a sound structure . . . It steadies the mind and leads to the stillness of meditation.’
The modern lifestyle with its excesses and worldly desires, the constant need to be connected, and the rapid development in technology, has made stress and lifestyle-related diseases the norm. The need for meditation thus is more acute. Meditation calms the mind, brings focus and enhances the senses, resulting in a better quality of life and work. And with the right mantras, meditation becomes a highly effective tool in unleashing the immense potential within oneself.
This book from the Sivananda Ashram explains what meditation and mantras are and how they can be effectively used to recharge oneself with divine energy, so that the tension of body and mind are gradually reduced.
Me And My Plays
Mahesh Dattani’s work has shaped contemporary English theatre in India over the past twenty-five years, boldly exploring themes like homosexuality, religious fanaticism, child sexual abuse and gender bias while also raising the bar for theatrical innovation. In Me and My Plays, he eloquently reflects on the highs and lows of surviving in a system largely indifferent to professional theatre.
Included in this edition are Where Did I Leave My Purdah?, which explores the life and travails of Nazia, a feisty actress now in her eighties, who is forced to confront her past demons when she attempts to stage a comeback, and The Big Fat City, a black comedy about the residents of an apartment complex in Mumbai who unwittingly become accomplices to a murder. Intense and hard-hitting, both plays deal with the lies that simmer beneath the surface of our daily lives.
Kindled Lives
Will destiny bring them together? Maybe, with a little help…
Returning home after a decade in the United States, blue-blooded billionaire Aditya Maurya is baffled by his father’s wish that he marry Rhea. To him she is nothing more than an orphan of dubious parentage living off their generosity.
Rhea, self-confident and spirited, brought up under the care of the Maurya family, is still smarting from the handsome Jr Maurya’s humiliation of her five years ago.
The ailing patriarch of the family Vijayendra Maurya, however, feels that they are perfect for each other. Also, he has a promise to keep…
Forced into marriage by Sr Maurya’s ill-health, Aditya and Rhea call a truce. Soon, they discover each other’s true selves and passion ignites between them.
Will their love withstand the truth about Rhea’s birth, though?
For God’s Sake
An adman constantly strives to connect market research data to insight on a winning campaign. Ambi Parmeshwaran has developed a fascination for how Indians are becoming more religious, but also more consumption driven. Combining his thirty- year experience as an adman with a lifelong passion for religious studies, Ambi seeks to answer questions like: Why has the bindi disappeared from advertisements? How did Akshaya Trithaya become such a big deal? What makes Lord Shiva so cool? How did a Chennai-based department store start the New Year’s Sale phenomenon? Are Muslims more open-minded shoppers? Why do people who have no interest in using an MBA degree still get an MBA degree? How did the Manusmriti do a disservice to Hindu women? What can Harvard Business School learn from the Kumbh Mela? Ambi has filled this book with personal stories, anecdotes, lessons and excerpts from research and other publications. This book is a treat for anyone interested in how religion has evolved and how clever marketers have ridden the wave by tailoring their products and services.