Archives: Books

In March 2009 Manvendra Singh, the BJP’s candidate for the Barmer Lok Sabha constituency, launched his election campaign to retain the seat that he had won with a record margin in 2004 and lovingly nurtured as a member of Parliament for five years. Over two months, he criss-crossed his sprawling constituency straddling Rajasthan’s Thar desert, covering 34,000 kilometres in temperatures often nearing 50°C, to meet his constituents. They included herders and headmen; communities of traditional balladeers and craftsmen; youth groups and hoary old political fixers; Muslim pirs, Jain munis and Hindu priests. Campaign Diary, a daily record of those gruelling weeks of canvassing voters, is a compelling portrait of democracy in action in one corner of India, and shows the impact of local, national and international issues and policies at the grass-roots level. Vividly bringing to life the heat and dust, the intrigues and infighting, the moving personal encounters and comic episodes that make up the Great Indian Election Circus, Campaign Diary is also an honest and insightful account of the rewards— and the heartbreak—of a life in politics.

A superb collection of stories from a modern Indian master!
One of the most versatile and innovative among contemporary Tamil writers, Sundara Ramaswamy’s early stories, written between 1951 and 1966, focus on ordinary people leading ordinary lives and are full of gems by way of characterization: the policeman and the priest of the Nadi Krishna temple in ‘Prasadam’, and Varadan and Joswyn in ‘True Love’ remain unforgettable, in spite of their pedestrian lives. Written in the 1970s, clouded by the aftermath of the Bangladesh war and the Emergency, in the later stories—‘Intoxication’, ‘Waves’—the plots turn darker and more complex.
Surprising us with their twists and turns, raising uncomfortable questions, and yet touched by a fine sense of humour and humanity, the stories in this collection belong with the best in the genre.

In recent years, the remote kingdom of Bhutan has increasingly attracted the attention of the world. In 2008, it emerged as the world’s youngest democracy and in the same year crowned the world’s youngest monarch. This was followed by the new King’s colourful wedding in 2011. Today, it continues to enchant the rest of the world with its policy of Gross National Happiness and has become a very popular destination for travel. But, despite its growing popularity and the rising scholarly interest in the country, Bhutan remains one of the most poorly studied places on earth.

Karma Phuntsho’s The History of Bhutan is the first-ever attempt to cover the entire history of Bhutan in some detail in English, combining both traditional perspectives and modern academic analysis. Written by a leading expert on the country, the book tells the story of Bhutan in a narrative style interspersed with some analytical and topical discussion, and numerous citations and translations from earlier writings. It is primarily a historical account, but it also includes substantive discussions of Bhutan’s geography, culture and society to give the readers an incisive introduction to the country.

Julia Robinson’s bored. Her job at a top London ad agency is starting to feel a bit same-ish, her London rent is killing her and she’s been rained on one time too many to find the British weather amusing any longer. More importantly, everyone but her seems to be paired off in cosy twosomes.Julia wants to shake things up—and to the horror of friends and family jumps at the chance of a new job in Mumbai. Armed with nothing but a travel guide, fondness for curry and a vague awareness of Bollywood, she finds herself bang in the centre of one of the most chaotic, energetic cities in the world. But will she be able to navigate the potholes in the street, the glitzy nightlife of exclusive clubs and expensive cocktails, and the customs and traditions of a whole new world to find her way to Mr Right?

Playwright, author and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body—a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not, inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.”

But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer and, through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body—pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the Earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully—and gratefully—joined to the body of the world.

Unflinching, generous and inspiring, Ensler calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

How do you get your 6-year-old to sleep on time?
How do you get your child to socialize?
How do you get your 5-year-old to stop throwing tantrums when she wants something?

When conventional approaches such as reward and punishment don’t work, what do you do? As much as being a joy and blessing to raise a child, parenting is a journey riddled with questions. As a parent, how do you know what’s right for your child and you?

Family counselor and columnist, Gouri Dange tackles all your parental woes with simple and reasoned answers and suggestions. Presented in an accessible question–answer format, More ABCs of Parenting provides practical solutions to demonstrate how there are answers to problems you thought were impossible.