The 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw the involvement of India’s youth like never before. They were debating inside classrooms, sitting for dharnas on the street, having conversations in offices and on social media. The election in 2014 saw 150 million young voters—and the highest number of first-time voters in India.
And yet, the average age of our parliamentarians is sixty-three. Our leaders are almost four decades older than the average twenty-five-year-old.
In The Young and the Restless, Gurmehar Kaur, student activist and author of Small Acts of Freedom, follows the journeys of eight youth leaders, their aspirations for the country’s youth, their aspirations for themselves and, most importantly, their aspirations for the nation. She explores whether their politics only mimics that of the older party leaders or if they have the ideas, passion and motivation of the demographic they represent.
How do we make sense of the Muslims of India?
Do they form a political community?
Does the imagined conflict between Islam and modernity affect the Muslims’ political behaviour in this country?
Are Muslim religious institutions-mosques and madrasas-directly involved in politics?
Do they instruct the community to vote strategically in all elections?
What are ‘Muslim issues’?
Is it only about triple talaq?
Are Muslims truly nationalists? Or do they continue to remain just an ‘other’ in India?
While these questions intrigue us, we seldom debate to find pragmatic answers to these queries. Examining the everydayness of Muslims in contemporary India, Hilal Ahmed offers an evocative story of politics and Islam in India, which goes beyond the given narratives of Muslim victimhood and Islamic separation.
Dysfunctional families, sexual abuse, sheer greed and sometimes just a skewed moral compass. These are some of the triggers that drove the women captured in these pages to become lawbreakers.
Queens of Crime demonstrates a haunting criminal power that most people do not associate women with. The acts of depravity described in this book will jolt you to the core, ensuring you have sleepless nights for months.
Based on painstaking research, these are raw, violent and seemingly unbelievable but true rendition of India’s women criminals.
It is significant that the only character in Hindu mythology, a king at that, to be given the title of ekam-patni-vrata, devoted to a single wife, is associated with the most unjust act of abandoning her in the forest to protect family reputation. This seems a deliberate souring of the narrative, made even more complex by Ram’s refusal to remarry despite the pressure on royalty to produce an heir. The intention seems to be to provoke thought on notions of fidelity, property and self-image. And so mythologist and illustrator Devdutt Pattanaik narrates the Ramayan, drawing attention to the many oral, visual and written retellings composed in different times by different poets, each one trying to solve the puzzle in their own unique way. This book approaches Ram by speculating on Sita-her childhood with her father, Janak, who hosted sages mentioned in the Upanishads; her stay in the forest with her husband who had to be a celibate ascetic while she was in the prime of her youth; her interactions with the women of Lanka, recipes she exchanged, emotions they shared; her connection with the earth, her mother; her role as the Goddess, the untamed Kali as well as the demure Gauri, in transforming the stoic prince of Ayodhya into God.
Kabir follows the most beautiful girl he has ever seen into a mall. But there are gunshots and screams as terrorists storm inside after fleeing an operation gone wrong. Kabir and Diya find themselves trapped, along with other hostages. The terrorists make their demands and announce that until they are met, one person will die every hour. The situation begins to spiral out of control.
Held hostage by fate, looking death in the face, it could be Kabir and Diya’s last chance at love. But, as they watch time run out, it turns out both of them are hiding secrets. Secrets that make their love even more impossible.
In this ambitious book, bestselling author Sanjeev Sanyal chronicles the grand sweep of history from East Africa to Australia, conjuring the great cities of Angkor and Vijayanagar, medieval Arab empires and Chinese ‘treasure fleets’ in rich, vivid detail. He explores remote archaeological sites, maritime trading networks and half-forgotten oral tales to challenge established historical narratives with fresh evidence. Shining new light on medieval geopolitics and long-lost cities, The Ocean of Churn is a mesmerizing journey into the heart of a vibrant civilization.
Naseeruddin Shah’s sparkling memoir of his early years, ‘from zero to thirty-two’, spans his extraordinary journey from a feudal hamlet near Meerut to Catholic schools in Nainital and Ajmer, and finally to stage and film stardom in Mumbai. Along the way, he recounts his passages through Aligarh University, the National School of Drama and the Film and Television Institute of India, where his luck finally began to change.
Aur Phir Ek Din tells a compelling tale, written with rare honesty and consummate elegance, leavened with tongue-in-cheek humour. There are moving portraits of family members, darkly funny accounts of his schooldays, and vivid cameos of directors and actors he has worked with, among them Ebrahim Alkazi, Shyam Benegal, Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi.
The accounts of his struggle to earn a living through acting, his experiments with the craft, his love affairs, his early marriage, his successes and failures are narrated with remarkable frankness and objective self-assessment. Brimming with delightful anecdotes as well as poignant, often painful revelations, this book is a tour de force, destined to become a classic of the genre.
From Amartya Sen to Aamir Khan, Raghuram Rajan, Sachin Tendulkar, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Pranab Mukherjee, Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman and Sania Mirza among others, in this book eminent journalist Sonia Singh opens a window to the myriad worlds of these stalwarts, who share their idea of India in freewheeling conversations. Chatty, candid and amazingly gripping these 15 interviews uncover the pivotal moments in their lives that have become defining moments in the history of the nation.
Why did Harsh Mariwala leave his family business?
Why did the Burman family quit the day-to-day operations of Dabur?
How did the Dhingras turn a collapsing business into India’s second-largest paint company?
The Inheritors offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in Marico, Dabur, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Antara, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Luxor and Motilal Oswal. The book focuses on culture, family politics, ego battles, business rivalries and a lot more. And then, of course, there are the inheritors themselves-some take the businesses to even greater heights while others lead them to doom.
A schoolteacher who killed multiple paramours with cyanide; a mother who trained her daughters to kill children; a thug from the 1800s who slaughtered more than 900 people, a manservant who killed girls and devoured their body parts.
If you thought serial killers was a Western phenomenon, think again!
These bone-chilling stories in The Deadly Dozen will take you into the hearts and heads of India’s most devious murderers and schemers, exploring what made them kill and why?
