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.
Archives: Books
What Will You Give for This Beauty?
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.
The Adventures Of Feluda: The Royal Bengal Mystery
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.
The Adventures of Feluda: The Curse Of The Goddess
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.
One Part Woman
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.
Not Out!
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.
Asmara’s Summer
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?
Gangamma’s Gharial
‘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.
Yama’s Lieutenant
What happens when the forces of hell, heaven and earth collide?
The inhabitants of the thousand hells of Yama have broken free from their prison and vowed to wreak havoc on the heavens, the earth and hell. With the asuras and rakshasas teamed up with Naganara, a terrifying necromancer hungry for power, the universe is headed for war and destruction-unless one human has something to do with it.
Agni Prakash, a debonair young man whose world has been turned upside down by the death of his twin sister, Varu, has been enlisted to stop these forces and be Yama’s very own lieutenant. As the mythical world clashes with his own, Agni discovers a manuscript left behind by his sister. Hauntingly, it draws parallels to the treacherous path upon which he has been thrust. Equipped with an acerbic wit and winning charm, and hardened by the grief of his sister’s bereavement, Agni undertakes a battle, where the odds seem tipped wildly against him, and finds unlikely companions along the way. Will he be able to uncover the secret behind his sister’s writings? And more importantly, will he be able to avert the destruction that seems imminent?
The Sita Colouring Book
Relive the fabulous story of the Ramayana through 108 illustrations to be coloured in.
The Sita Colouring Book, based on Devdutt Pattanaik’s bestselling retelling of the Ramayana, is a fascinating colouring journey for you to embark on.
From the very beginning of the great epic, the birth of Dashratha’s four sons, to the passing of Lakshman and Ram at the very end, the remarkably simple yet multilayered story of the Ramayana comes alive through Devdutt’s wonderful illustrations.
Rediscover some of the most dramatic moments of the great Indian epic, from Ram’s breaking of the great bow to the abduction of Sita, from the sacking of Lanka to the building of the bridge across the sea, from the slaying of Ravana to Sita’s trial by fire.
Imagine the way the Dandaka forest, Kishkindha, Lanka and Ayodhya might have looked, and colour them in all their glory, along with portraits of unforgettable personages like Hanuman, Jambuvan, Jatayu, Surpanakha, Kumbhakarna and Ravana.
This is a great colouring adventure that readers of all ages will thoroughly enjoy.