Everything you wanted to know about money but never asked the grown-ups about
They say time is money. But they never really tell you why.
They say money doesn’t grow on trees. But they don’t tell you where it comes from.
Aman and Anya are as clueless about cash as you are. Then, they start asking questions. Egged on by clever Dadi and forthcoming Mom and Dad (who want nothing to come in the way of their children and knowledge), Aman and Anya learn what finances are really all about.
So go ahead! Read on for a roller-coaster ride through the world of money.
Into the land of stories . . .
Moody Mohini belongs to a legendary family of storytellers. Telling tall tales is supposed to be in her genes. Except, she doesn’t think so-even though her family (as well as just about everyone in Mithika) expects her to be the torchbearer of this rather marvellous tradition.
So, cracking under the pressure of a plot line one day, she runs far away from home, only to be held hostage by a spunky spirit, who traps her in a strange spell and whisks her off on a whirlwind tour of India and its many storytelling traditions. How else can Mohini break the charm (you guessed it!) but by telling a story herself!
Join Mohini as she receives a unique education about the untold ways in which the people of the country weave
tales, using everything from stick figures and spectacular sculptures to shadow puppets and flamboyant dance dramas, while discovering the profound powers of that special skill-storytelling.
The region inhabited by the largest number of Muslims-roughly 500 million-today is South Asia. In the course of the Islamization process that began in the eighth century, the region developed a distinct Indo-Islamic civilization that culminated in the Mughal Empire. In the Gulf, while paying lip service to the power centres, including Mecca and Medina, this civilization cultivated its own variety of Islam, which was based on Sufism.
Over the last fifty years, pan-Islamic ties have intensified between these two regions. Gathering together some of the best specialists on the subject, this volume explores these ideological, educational and spiritual networks, which have gained momentum due to political strategies, migration flows and increased communications. At stake are both the resilience of the civilization that imbued South Asia with a specific identity and the relations between Sunnis and Shias in a region where Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting a cultural proxy war. The Islamic Connection investigates the nature and implications of the cultural, spiritual and socio-economic rapprochement between these two Islams.
‘Those footprints tell us of our origins, recalling the first Cloudfarers who came to earth, exiled from the sky.’
Paramount Academy is nothing short of a prison. As Kip comes to terms with this awful military-style school, he makes new friends who have a terrible secret: they are Cloudfarers-a lost tribe of beings from another planet, who have been exiled on earth. And they need his help to get back to their land, away from Principal Captain Lovelock, who is on to them. But time is running out . . .
Join Kip and his friends as they embark on a stormy adventure on the clouds and through dangerous cliffs and mountains to reach a safe haven.
The courts in India are struggling with a huge backlog of cases. As of 2016, there are 27 million pending cases and close to 90 million people are still waiting for justice.
To the common man, this is just a number. But some cases have impacted the collective conscious of the entire nation. These include the trial of Afzal Guru, the Nirbhaya case, the criminalization of homosexuality, the Parliament attack case, the Babri Masjid demolition and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
There was a lot that happened inside the courts during these trials which has remained hidden from public view. The Dramatic Decade is a collection of these stories. The book gives the reader a ringside view of what happened both inside and outside the courts. What were the arguments made, which lawyers fought the cases, what was the court’s judgment and how did it affect the common man are some of the many questions answered here.
In February 2017, Gurmehar Kaur, a nineteen-year-old student, joined a peaceful campaign after violent clashes at a Delhi University college. As part of the campaign, Kaur’s post made her the target of an onslaught of social media vitriol. Kaur, the daughter of a war martyr, suddenly became the focal point of a nationalism debate. Facing a trial by social media, Kaur almost retreated into herself. But she was never brought up to be silenced. ‘Real bullets killed my father. Your hate bullets are deepening my resolve,’ she wrote then. Today, Kaur is doubly determined not to be silent. Small Acts of Freedom is her story.
This is the story of three generations of strong, passionate single women in one family, women who have faced the world on their own terms. With an unusual narrative structure that crisscrosses elegantly between the past and the present, spanning seventy years from 1947 to 2017, Small Acts of Freedom is about courage. It’s about resilience, strength and love. From her grandmother who came to India from Lahore after Partition to the whirlwind romance between her parents, from her father’s state funeral to her harrowing experiences since her days of student activism, Gurmehar Kaur’s debut is about the fierceness of love, the power of family, and the little acts that beget big revolutions.
‘A bitter winter wind blowing outside spoke to me. There was no one else. And then it struck me. She might have truly disappeared! Sometimes, you get a sense of these things . . .’
It’s been one hell of a tough week at Yummimages, a digital infotainment site, with controversies seeping into the politicking within the office. To calm things down, Rahul, the founder, plans a party at his home. His goal is to set things right between his fiancée-to-be, Simone, and his business partner and close friend, Suhel. With the party in full swing it’s time for Rahul to have ‘the talk’, but suddenly Simone is nowhere to be found.
As all investigations come to naught, Rahul takes matters into his own hands and soon has a few suspects lined up. It’s just a matter of time before he knows the truth. But reality can be so twisted, so bizarre, so utterly unbelievable . . .
This book, by the creator of Agent Rana, will continue to give you chills long after you have read it.
How India Became Democratic tells the untold story of the preparation of the electoral roll on the basis of universal adult franchise in the world’s largest democracy and offers a new view of the way democracy captured the political imagination of its diverse peoples.
Indians became voters before they were citizens-by the time the constitution came into force in 1950, the notion of universal franchise and electoral democracy were already grounded. Drawing on rich archival materials, Shani shows how the Indian people were a driving force in the making of democratic citizenship as they struggled for their voting rights.
The music’s still playing, fifty years on . . .
It is 1965, and John, Paul, George and Ringo have lost themselves. Beatlemania is at its peak and the boys are overwhelmed by screaming fans, more money than they can count, and fame beyond their dreams. But one day, on the sets of the surreal Help!, George discovers the sitar, starting the boys off on a journey filled with
drug-induced introspection, transnational spirituality and damned fine music.
It is 1968, and John, Paul, George and Ringo have decided to find themselves. Following an eerie series of events, as if devised by fate, the boys are brought to Rishikesh, India, in pursuit of eternal happiness through a secret mantra from Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Hoping to get the better of their personal demons, they seek to break the shackles of stardom even though it begins the unravelling of the band.
Across the Universe etches in lyrical detail a picture of the world’s greatest band torn apart by their inner dissensions yet bursting with creative genius. Full of characters and happenings delightful and evil, of comic excess and dark whimsy, the book traces the path the Beatles took to India and the dramatic denouement
of their sojourn at the Himalayan ashram. It is a modern fairy tale about four people the world has loved like no one else.
In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution.
Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.
