Maestro management consultant and strategy guru Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese has been dispatched to London to the Lederman account. Things in the mother country are not all tally-ho as Einstein must make do with convoluted remuneration, temperamental digestion and a comely coworker who revels in mixed signals-not to mention a bizarre conspiracy by museums all over the city to frustrate his every attempt to imbibe in high culture. Things are not all that much better with his love life. Gouri insists that he go to Madame Tussaud’s and take a photo with the Shah Rukh Khan statue. But who will pay for the entry ticket? Gouri’s father is not the proprietor no? Then? Just when things look like they can’t get any worse, Lederman threatens to shut down the project. Panic ensues. Once again Dufresne Partners turns to their most resourceful, inventive, original, strategic, out-of-the-box-thinking employee.
Archives: Books
Seventy
The irrepressible Shobhaa De is back with a book that celebrates her upcoming seventieth year. She calls herself a ‘Child of the Republic’ as looks back on the terrain of her life. Especially at relationships-hers and those she has observed over the years-and at ever-present fears and grief.
Shobhaa De’s writing exudes an empathy that has turned several of her books into life manuals for generations of Indians. Her keen wit spears and spares none, least of all herself. Her delicious irreverence makes this book a delight to read. It is the lessons in loving and living woven into the writing-intensely personal and deeply felt-that form the wise heart of Seventy.
Right Here Right Now
Reinventing yourself is harder when you don’t remember who you wereSeventeen-year-old Kalindi wakes up in hospital with no recollection of how she got there. But that’s not the only thing she doesn’t remember: Her whole memory has been wiped clean. How? The doctors can only speculate. Kalindi doesn’t know what happened to her and-worse-she doesn’t know who she is. She enters her own life as if for the first time. Feeling like an invader, she meets her parents, friends and boyfriend. Everybody says her life was perfect, but she’s having a hard time accepting who she was, and the kind of person she wanted to be. She’s also got boards to pass-but she doesn’t remember anything she learned! And the recurrent nightmares don’t make it any easier. Nobody knows what happened to her. Can she have a peaceful present and future, without a past? Can she just live in the here and now?
The Unending Game
In God we trust, the rest we monitor . . .
A former chief of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, deconstructs the shadowy world of spies, from the Cold War era to the age of global jihad, from surveillance states to psy-war and cyberwarfare, from gathering information to turning it into credible intelligence. Vikram Sood provides a panoramic view of the rarely understood profession of spying to serve a country’s strategic and security interests.
As a country’s stature and reach grow, so do its intelligence needs. This is especially true for one like India that has ambitions of being a global player even as it remains embattled in its own neighbourhood. The Unending Game tackles these questions while providing a national and international perspective on gathering external intelligence, its relevance in securing and advancing national interests, and why intelligence is the first playground in the game of nations.
Flavours Of The Spice Coast
The south-western coast of India, famous for its spices, has been a cultural melting pot for two thousand years. Jews, Muslims and Christians, merchants and missionaries came and stayed here, adding their influences to the region’s culture and cuisine. Over the years, the traditional produce of the coast-vegetables like yam and tapioca; fruits like coconut, mango and banana; and of course, fish and prawn-has been combined in new and interesting ways in a diverse range of dishes. The recipes in this book draw upon this rich heritage to give us traditional vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare such as Avial, Kaalan, Fish Molee, Chicken Biriyani and Egg Roast. The book also contains recipes for popular breakfast dishes like Puttu and Appam, anytime snacks like Murukku and Banana Fritters and delicious desserts such as Paal Ada Pradhaman and tender coconut pudding.
From street corner food like Trivandrum Chicken to the more adventurous Fish with Mango and Fish in a Plantain Leaf, here is an exciting array of the very best of cooking from the spice coast of India.
A Girl Like Me
Recently transplanted from the quiet suburbs of Minnesota to bustling Gurgaon, sixteen-year-old Anisha Rai is determined to hate her new life. While her irrepressible mom, Isha, loves her new job, Annie clutches on to the memories of her father.
Annie’s life becomes too hot to handle when she discovers that her childhood friend, Keds, has transformed into quite a dude; theatre enthusiast Kunal wants to teach her a lot more than drama; and Rani, who lives upstairs, is not as sweet and simple as she appears.
Deftly weaving through home and school, and love and loss, A Girl like Me is a roller-coaster ride packed with the breathless exuberance of teenage life.
The Carpet Weaver
Afghanistan, 1977. Kanishka Nurzada, the son of a leading carpet seller, falls in love with his friend Maihan, with whom he shares his first kiss at the age of sixteen. Their romance must be kept secret in a nation where the death penalty is meted out to those deemed to be kuni, a derogatory term for gay men. And when war comes to Afghanistan, it brings even greater challenges-and danger-for the two lovers.
From the cultural melting pot of Kabul to the horrors of an internment camp in Pakistan, Kanishka’s arduous journey finally takes him to the USA in the desperate search for a place to call home-and the fervent hope of reuniting with his beloved Maihan. But destiny seems to have different plans in store for him.
Intimate and powerful, The Carpet Weaver is a sweeping tale of a young gay man’s struggle to come of age and find love in the face of brutal persecution.
Rabda: My Sai . . . My Sigh
Rabda has lost much in life and now wants to attempt suicide. But destiny saves him. As he lies distraught and broken on the hospital bed, he has a visitor-Sai Baba of Shirdi himself. From there, together with Baba, he embarks on a journey of understanding his life. He realized how his anger had affected his past life and how it has now cast a shadow on the present. Several such truths of life and living begin to unfold. Through Baba’s conversations with Rabda emerge the former’s philosophy and teachings. Powerfully written, this novel shows the path to understanding faith, hope and surrender, and Sai Baba of Shirdi.
Yoga
A compilation of Osho’s talks, Yoga: The Science of Living is not merely a commentary on Patanjali’s ancient treatise. It is enriched with insights from Osho’s own awakened consciousness and defies the traditional norms of spirituality. Osho punctuates the voyage of self-discovery with an irreverent sense of humour as he answers the questions from various people, keen to discover themselves with refreshing candour. Insightful and profound, this book is an invaluable guide for those looking for inner balance and peace.
Yoga
According to Osho, life is nothing but an expression of silence. We come out of silence, but then lose our way. In order to experience this silence again and attain liberation, we need to rediscover the path back to our pure being. The key is simple: we must not identify with our bodies and minds, as all identification is outwards, and we are going on an inner journey. Osho emphasizes, as always, the importance of combining intelligence, awareness and humour on this journey.