In the world of Friday releases teeming with wannabes, the body of a starlet named Jeanie would have gone unnoticed. But what follows is a series of killings of young aspiring actresses-each more gory and perverse than the last-that has the police stumped.
Kas Batterywalah, a disgraced former cop, is like a fish out of water when he’s not working on a case. Kassatta, a suspended military doctor, is not supposed to be in his life. And yet they are working together, in Mumbai, wading through the scandalous lives of the top stars, their perversions and sinister games, and racing against time to connect the dots.
With more twists and turns than a roller coaster, Bollywood Deception is a thrilling, unputdownable read.
Treating pleasure as an art, Kama Sutra is a handbook covering every aspect of love and relationships. Its seven sections are devoted to everything from social life to detailed instruction on sexual techniques. This beautiful new edition dispels the well-worn image of an erotic Oriental curiosity, highlighting the work’s historical importance as a sophisticated guide to living well. Conveying all the original flavour and feel of this elegant, intimate and hugely enjoyable work, this clear, accurate translation is a masterpiece of pithy description and a wry account of human desires and foibles.
The first Indian headmaster of an English-medium school in Surat, and later Diwan of Bhuj, Nandshankar Mehta (1835-1905) was a strong advocate of social reform. Karan Ghelo, the first modern Gujarati novel and his only work of fiction, draws heavily on bardic chronicles and historic texts. // Tulsi Vatsal, a graduate of Oxford University, is an independent researcher, writer and editor. She has authored a number of books on Indian history and culture. Her latest book is Sahib, Bibi, Nawab: Baluchar Silks of Bengal 1750-1900. // Aban Mukherji is the author of Soonamai Desai of Navsari: A Biographical and Autobiographical Sketch. She is currently co-editing a nineteenth-century Gujarati text, Mumbaino Bahaar.
Qaim Deen sneaks across the Sutlej, into India, to steal cattle-braving cobras, wild boars and the border patrol-and gives generously of his earnings to those in need. Young Nauman’s forbidden love for Nuzhat leads him to seek refuge in a holy place, at a terrible cost to his family. Maulvi Abdur Rahman and his neighbour’s bull terrier engage in a hilarious and unrelenting battle of wits. Could Kareeman’s beauty, which hits the village like a storm, be the salvation of Ghafoora the Dimwit?
Ali Natiq brings vividly alive the world of the Punjab countryside, with its undercurrent of violence and poverty, through feuds and feasts, hunts and marriages, mobs and floods, elopements and gossip. Acrobats, holy men, thieves, peasants, landowners, masons and courtesans populate the stories of his virtuoso debut collection What Will You Give for This Beauty? Possessed of dark irony and a searing moral vision, Ali Akbar Natiq is a storyteller of exceptional talent and manifest power.
A man-eater in the jungles of the Terai. An ancient riddle. The lure of hidden treasure.
Visiting the famous hunter and wildlife writer Mahitosh Sinha-Roy in his Jalpaiguri palace, Feluda is presented with a riddle that holds the clue to ancestral treasure. But before he can begin unravelling the puzzle, Mr Sinha-Roy’s secretary is found dead in the forest, his body savaged by a big cat. Feluda’s investigations lead him deeper and deeper into a scandalous family secret, and bring him face to face with a bloodthirsty royal Bengal tiger in a final confrontation.
A deserted temple. The death of a patriarch. An escaped tiger.
An incident near the desolate Chhinnamasta temple on the rocky riverbank of Rajrappa leads to the death of Mahesh Chowdhury, the head of a Hazaribagh family. Adding to the mystery are a set of coded diaries, a valuable stamp collection that is missing and a tiger that is roaming the streets of Hazaribagh. One of Feluda’s most intriguing adventures, this shows the master sleuth at his best.
All of Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child-from prayers topenance, potions to pilgrimages-have been in vain. Despite being in aloving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly houndedby the taunts and insinuations of the people around them.Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on thechariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswaraand the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night whenrules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman issanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation.But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test.Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity arelationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tugof personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portraitof marriage, love and sex.
Chronicling the Indian Premier League (IPL), India’s first sports league and the most controversial ever, this book explores the intricacies of the business and the acceptability of the IPL to take a closer look at the various scams that have plagued it. It is a blow-by-blow description of the highs, lows, and future of the IPL that has, possibly, redefined the way the rest of the world perceives India. It analyses what the league got right and what it has got wrong and why. And, what the IPL and its owner/promoter-the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)-could have done to sell the sport and build on the popularity of cricket in India, but didn’t. Analysing the spot-fixing scandal, the conflict of interest controversy, the specific issues concerning the teams, the complicated interplay between the BCCI and the IPL, this thought-provoking work brings to light many untold stories of cricket in India.
For a month, I’m going to be living a lie.’
Seventeen-year-old Asmara is popular, funny and pretty, but has a secret that could destroy her street cred in college: her grandparents live on Tannery Road, an area known for its lower-middle-class Muslim population-an area she’s always ensured she’s avoided. And now, to her horror, she discovers that she must spend her entire summer vacation there. Will it be a nightmare, or a lesson in self-discovery? Or both? Will Asmara find herself in the bylanes of Tannery Road?
‘There was a swish of a tail and for the first time in more than seventy years, the bazaar at Giripuram was Gangamma-less.’
At the ripe old age of seventy-nine and a quarter, Gangamma the gardener comes across a rather unusual object-a gharial-shaped earring that can take her anywhere in the world. On her very first trip, she tries to kidnap an apple tree, only to discover that it has a guardian-a sullen twelve-year-old girl, and an unlikely friendship springs between the two.
But that’s only the beginning of this story . . . or well, the middle, depending on how you look at it.
This book is no teleporter, but it will transport you (whether you’re twelve or seventy-nine) to a fabulous (as in, fable-like) land of strange creatures and odd heroes, and where things are never what they seem.
