Chanakya’s numerous sayings on life and living — popularized in the wake of his successful strategy to put Chandragupta Maurya on the throne, if legend is to be believed — have been compiled in numerous collections and anthologies over time. This entire corpus was referred to as Chanakya Niti.
These aphorisms, which continue to be recalled and quoted in many parts of India, primarily deal with everyday living: with family and social surroundings, friends and enemies, wealth and knowledge, and the inevitable end of everything. They also advise on the good and bad in life, proper and improper conduct, and how to manage many difficult situations.
A.N.D. Haksar’s wonderful translation also places this work into context, showing how these verses have endured in the popular imagination for so long.
Archives: Books
The Other Side of the Divide
Pegged on journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani’s visit to Pakistan, this book provides insights into the country beyond what we already know about it. These include details on the impact of India’s soft power, thanks to Bollywood, and the remnants of Pakistan’s multireligious past, and how it frittered away advantages of impressive growth in the first three decades of its existence by embracing religious conservatism.
The book profiles extraordinary people-lawyers, poets, musicians and even a former military chief-who stood up to an oppressive state. It has historical anecdotes, like the story of an ordinary woman who became the ‘muse and mistress’, and often the ‘brains behind the regime of a swinging general’ who led Pakistan to ignominy in the 1971 war, that of a Sikh family which dared to swim against the tide to stay back in Pakistan after Partition, and a prostitute’s son who uses his art to humanize commercial sex workers in defiance of a conservative society.
The book attempts to present a contemporary portrait of Pakistan-where prohibition remains only on paper and one of the biggest taxpayers is a Parsee-owned brewery-as a complicated and conflicted country suspended between tradition and modernity.
Undertow
Loya is twenty-five: solitary, sincere, with restless stirrings in her heart. In an uncharacteristic move, she sets off on an unexpected journey, away from her mother, Rukmini, and her home in Bengaluru, to distant, misty Assam. She comes looking for her beloved Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, but also seeks someone else-her grandfather, Torun Ram Goswami, someone she has never met before. She arrives at the Yellow House on the banks of the Brahmaputra, where Torun lives, not knowing that her life is about to change. Twenty-five years ago, Rukmini had been cast out of the family home by her mother, the formidable and charismatic Usha, while Torun watched silently. Loya now seeks answers, both from him and from the place that her mother once called home. In her quest, she finds an understanding not only of herself and her life but also of the precarious bonds that tie people together.
A delicate, poignant portrait of family and all that it contains, Undertow becomes, in the hands of this gifted writer, an exploration of much more: home and the outside world, the insider and the outsider, and the ever-evolving nature of love itself.
Rebirth
Rebirth is the story of Kaberi, a young woman coming to grips with an uncertain marriage. It is also an intimate portrait of the passionate bond between a mother and her unborn child. Moving between Bengaluru and Guwahati, the novel weaves together Kaberi’s inner and outer worlds as she negotiates the treacherous waters of betrayal and loss-an unfaithful husband, a troubled relationship with her parents and the death of a childhood friend. With characteristic restraint and disarming honesty, Jahnavi Barua lays bare the disquieting predicaments of contemporary urban life and reveals the timeless and redemptive power of love, friendship and self-renewal.
Endless Song
A dazzling translation of one of the most revered ancient Bhakti poems
The Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance or sacred truth) is a grand 1102-verse poem, composed in the ninth century by Sathakopan-Nammalvar, the greatest of the alvar poets. Ingeniously weaving a garland of words-where each beginning is also an ending-the poet traces his cyclical quest for union with the supreme lord, Visnu. In this magnificent translation, Archana Venkatesan transports the flavour and cadences of Tamil into English, capturing the different voices and range of emotions through which the poet expresses his enduring desire for release. The scholarly introduction illuminates the poem’s kaleidoscopic brilliance and the traditions of devotional religiosity it inspired.
The World Between Us
When Amal finds out that her disastrous Tinder match is now going to be her boss, she can’t be more annoyed. Qais Ahmed is everything she never wants to be: narcissistic, manipulative and arrogant.
However, despite her relentless efforts, she is unable to resist his charm and wit and is drawn to him once she gets to know the real him.
She soon discovers that he isn’t just a part of her professional life but has a deep connection to a past she is trying to forget.
Will this disturbing secret tear them apart or bind them together forever?
Upstream
Upstream is the story of a remarkable journey, from a boyhood in pre-partition Lahore, then in Shimla post-Independence, to the creation of the unique entrepreneurial vision that is the ANAND group.
Deep Anand’s diverse conglomerate of companies and businesses is a herculean achievement. It is the story of the flowering of India’s engineering and manufacturing expertise decades before Make in India.
None of this would have happened without Anand’s ability to attract talented Indians from different regions and provinces of a richly diverse nation and bring home those working abroad–to create a unique blend of skills, cultures, languages, and beliefs.
Upstream is a fascinating insight into the art of foraging and managing joint venture partnerships with leading global companies and how to survive inevitable challenges and crisis and emerge stronger.
Equally, it is about the people who have made the ANAND group the successful venture that holds diversity together now and into the future.
Death; An Inside Story
Death is a taboo in most societies in the world. But what if we have got this completely wrong? What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that.
In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru dwells extensively upon his inner experience as he expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. From a practical standpoint, he elaborates on what preparations one can make for one’s death, how best we can assist someone who is dying and how we can continue to support their journey even after death.
Whether a believer or not, a devotee or an agnostic, an accomplished seeker or a simpleton, this is truly a book for all those who shall die!
Pocketful O’ Stories 2
ITC Engage, one of India’s leading fragrance brands is back with its much-loved bestselling series Pocketful O’Stories 2.0 in collaboration with the bestselling romance novelist Durjoy Datta.
This year’s theme, @LOVEIMPROMTWO was inspired by the newly launched 2-in-1 Pocket Perfume which makes sure that you are always ready for romance. People were invited to submit microtales on the unexpected and impromptu moments of love. Almost 25,000 entries were received within a month, making the second edition bigger than the first. Here’s presenting a compilation of the best stories that also includes Durjoy’s own microtales on unexpected moments of romance.
A Clear Blue Sky
26/11, 9/11, 7/7-these are dates that have changed the way we see ourselves and those around us. Dates that have changed the world, and not for the better. It’s about time we had an honest conversation about religion, race, caste and the mindsets that divide us.
In this collection, writers from India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan-Gulzar, Elmo Jayawardena, Manjula Padmanabhan, Poile Sengupta, Komail Aijazuddin, Bulbul Sharma and others-write about the various kinds of conflicts that plague our world today. There are poems that articulate pleas for peace and understanding as well as stories that make us sit upright and contemplate our own actions. Some pieces are dark, others full of light and hope, and some outright funny as they portray mindless bigots for what they are.
This book shows us that there may be a way for us to better understand different viewpoints, after all.