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.
Archives: Books
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.
Fit At 40
Are you afraid of turning 40?
40 is an important milestone in our life. Yet, this is often the time when the body’s metabolism reduces progressively and a lot of health problems such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and muscle and joint pain enter our lives.
In Fit at 40, renowned obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Rishma Dhillon Pai will give you a lowdown on major health issues that plague us in the 40s; the importance of a healthy diet; and offer advice, solutions, precautions, and tips to stay healthy, look younger, and keep midlife crisis at bay, forever.
The Intrigues of the Lion
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.
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.