Teenage years are the most difficult and puzzling years for both the teenager and his or her parent. This is when children begin to develop their own identity, seek individualism and veer away from their parents. They can be rebellious, defy norms and traditions, and stay cooped up in their rooms for days on end. Everything the parent says is anathema to them. So, whether you are a parent or a teenager, how do you deal with this turbulent and challenging phase?
In Drama Teen, Lina Ashar explores concepts from both sides of the fence. Helicopter parenting, parent-teen conflicts and ways to resolve them, and the habits that lead to a successful life are among the topics discussed here. She also explores ways to minimize the pain and trauma the ‘drama-teen’ phase can cause both to the teens and their parents. Packed with practical advice, tips, what-not-to-dos, and activities, Ashar expertly guides you to keep your cool through those complicated years.
Archives: Books
The Musk Syndrome
It is said that the musk deer searches all its life for the scent that emanates from it. Similarly, we humans look everywhere for peace and happiness but fail to look within ourselves.
Through The Musk Syndrome, Ruzbeh N. Bharucha, one of the best known spiritual writers of our times, makes this very simple but profound point. In his anecdotal style, often taking instances from his own life, Ruzbeh demonstrates the strength of our thoughts and actions; our beliefs and practices; and the power of the mind and spirit that we often fail to understand.
His approach is not of a Master but of a friend gently nudging you to understand what might be going wrong in your current attitude to life and the people around you.
The Musk Syndrome encapsulates the wisdom of life.
We Weren’t Lovers Like That
At the start of the new millennium, Aftab’s life came undone. He turned forty, and his wife of fourteen years left him for another man, taking their only child with her. Now he is on a train to Dehradun, the town of his childhood, doing the one thing he feels he is still good at: running away. As he looks back on his imperfect past, crowded with personal and professional compromises, only a slim hope saves him from despair: perhaps this flight will give him a second chance to reclaim a long-lost love that could have been his, had he the courage of his convictions. And then he can start afresh. With uncommon sensitivity and a rare understanding of human emotions, Navtej Sarna has produced a poignant account of a life of missed opportunities and approximate loves.
Of Love and Other Sorrows
Reports announcing the death of the book are now rife, but the continued relevance of the ten master writers discussed in this volume is proof to the contrary.
Here we come across the dissident Czech writer Václav Havel, who later became the nation’s president; the South African Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, with her pronounced anti-apartheid novels; the Chilean-American Isabel Allende, ‘the world’s most widely read Spanish author’; and Günter Grass, hailed as the ‘literary spokesman of his generation’. We also meet Graham Greene and Milan Kundera alongside the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who, in his quiet way, ridiculed Islamic fundamentalism. The book is rounded off with three remarkable Latin American writers: Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Gabriel García Márquez.
Of Love and Other Sorrows takes the reader on a fascinating journey in the company of some of the biggest names in modern literature. This illuminating study of their lives and works will seduce readers to rediscover these masters for themselves.
The Man Who Became Khali
‘I was a common man and a common man isn’t allowed to dream big . . . but then, there are those rare moments when one of these ill-fated lives manages to rise from mediocrity like a phoenix from the ashes’
His formative years were nothing but full of turbulence. From leaving his schooling to working as a daily-wage labourer, Dalip Singh Rana had seen it all at a very young age. He was often the subject of ridicule and was poked fun at due to his enormous girth.
However, even under such harsh circumstances, a determined Dalip relentlessly pursued his goal of wrestling for India. Such was his passion that he did what no Indian had done so far – enter the internationally acclaimed WWE arena!
My Fight with Destiny is the story of a man who not only triumphed over wrestling superstars like The Undertaker and went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship but also of a man who conquered his inner demons and physical anomalies.
An inspirational, emotional and no-holds-barred account of a life less ordinary-of a village simpleton who went on to become an international icon.
This is the story of how Dalip Singh Rana turned into THE GREAT KHALI!
My Dear Bapu
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, or Rajaji, was famously described by Mahatma Gandhi as his ‘conscience keeper’. The eighty-odd largely unpublished letters presented here span the period from the run-up to Independence to its early years, providing deep insight into the struggles and endeavours of Indian public life. Frank, brave, even bitter at times, they reveal the fierce debates, strong differences of opinion and continuous negotiation between the two leaders on matters crucial to the country’s future.
Introduced and annotated with trademark brilliance by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the letters offer us a rare glimpse of the lives of two of the tallest Indians of our age, when idealism rode strong but was also challenged.
Indian Railways
The railways brought modernity to India. Its vast network connected the far corners of the subcontinent, making travel, communication and commerce simpler than ever before. Even more importantly, the railways played a large part in the making of the nation: by connecting historically and geographically disparate regions and people, it forever changed the way Indians lived and thought, and eventually made a national identity possible.
This engagingly written, anecdotally told history captures the immense power of a business behemoth as well as the romance of train travel; tracing the growth of the railways from the 1830s (when the first plans were made) to Independence, Bibek Debroy and his co-authors recount how the railway network was built in India and how it grew to become a lifeline that still weaves the nation together.
This latest volume in The Story of Indian Business series will delight anyone interested in finding out more about the Indian Railways.
The Shadow Lines
As a young boy, Amitav Ghosh’s narrator travels across time through the tales of those around him, traversing the unreliable planes of memory, unmindful of physical, political and chronological borders. But as he grows older, he is haunted by a seemingly random act of violence. Bits and pieces of stories, both half-remembered and imagined, come together in his mind until he arrives at an intricate, interconnected picture of the world where borders and boundaries mean nothing, mere shadow lines that we draw dividing people and nations. Out of a complex web of memories, relationships and images, Amitav Ghosh builds an intensely vivid, funny and moving story. Exposing the idea of the nation state as an illusion, an arbitrary dissection of people, Ghosh depicts the absurd manner in which your home can suddenly become your enemy. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award.
The Rebel
Ram Jethmalani has been called many things-a legal legend, a wizard of the law and a magnet for controversy with a knack for defending the most notorious figures in India. With a career spanning the entire history of independent India, and still going strong, he has managed to command respect and evoke anger in equal measure. But did you know that he is the most pro-Israel politician in Asia; one of the founders of the prestigious National School of Law, Bangalore; one of the first to raise the issue of corruption in India; founder of the Sunday Guardian in the late eighties, one of the longest-serving parliamentarians; and that he is married to two wives at the same time?
In The Rebel: A Biography of Ram Jethmalani, Susan Adelman, a long-time friend, presents the most updated, authentic and detailed account of his life. Peppered with personal accounts, unknown facets of his life and insider titbits, the book reveals the man behind the larger-than-life persona of Ram Jethmalani.
Pyre
‘Pyre glows with as much power as [One Part Woman] did, and adds immeasurable value to contemporary Indian literature’-The Hindu
Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresan’s village, harboring a dangerous secret: their marriage is an inter-caste one, likely to upset the village elders should they get to know of it. Kumaresan is naively confident that all will be well. But nothing is further from the truth. Despite the strident denials of the young couple, the villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a different caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge.
A devastating tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery, Pyre conjures a terrifying vision of intolerance.