In sixteenth-century India, warrior Amar Singh, tracker Jingu, artist Qamaruz Zaman and fire-scarred scholar Ferdows travel through a land teeming with clans, languages and deities, stealthily rigging the emperor’s dominion over man, beast and demon.
The unlikely quartet prove adept at engineering spectacles reflecting the Great Moghul’s divine right to rule. Qamaruz Zaman and Jingu’s acting abilities are as sublime as their sketching and tracking; Amar Singh excels at violence; and Ferdows is a skilled linguist and healer. In a series of disguises, they intercept a rogue elephant attacking a riverside caravanserai, face a liger in a subterranean complex under a desert kingdom, and confront a demon in an animistic community in a remote mountain valley. The Great Moghul takes credit for each hunt, and this strategy of empire expansion seems to be working.
But there are challenges. Qamaruz Zaman is frail, hedonistic and allergic to fur. Jingu has dreams of transcending his caste but fears they will only ever be dreams. Ferdows is on a hunt but doesn’t like hurting things. And Amar Singh is a narcissist who cares only about honour and reclaiming lost glory. By the time the quartet reaches the harem city of Zikri to investigate a mysterious death during a symposium on metaphysics, the differences of temperament, belief and ambition between them are causing issues.
In Zikri, Jingu and Qamaruz Zaman are sidelined, Amar Singh learns there is an imperial hunter other than the Great Moghul, and Ferdows the storyteller becomes the story.
Fear and suspicion abound as rumours of Arulmozhi Varman’s death at sea spread throughout the Chozha land. Anger grows against the powerful, scheming Pazhuvettaraiyars. As leaders scramble to handle the fallout, Nandini Devi, the captivating wife of the elder Pazhuvettaraiyar, continues her machinations against the Chozha royal family. She vows that the sword of the last Pandiyan king—killed by Prince Aditta Karikalan—will take the lives of countless enemies.
Astute he may be, but is Chief Minister Aniruddhar Brahmarayar up to the task of diplomacy in such a volatile political climate? Can Princess Kundavai fight her way through the web of political intrigue and deceit in which she is trapped? Will valiant Vandiyatevan continue to surmount the colossal challenges fate throws at him?
Kalki paints a study in contrasts in The Slaying Sword, the third in the Ponniyin Selvan series, and Gowri Ramnarayan translates his world of conflicts with empathy and adroitness.
This is a translation of a historically important Bengali novel.
Published in 1882, Chatterji’s Anandamath helped create the atmosphere and the symbolism for the nationalist movement leading to Indian independence in 1947. It contains the famous hymn Vande Mataram (“I revere the Mother”), which has become India’s official National Song. Set in Bengal at the time of the famine of 1770, the novel reflects tensions and oppositions within Indian culture between Hindus and Muslims, ruler and ruled, indigenous people and foreign overlords, jungle and town, Aryan and non-Aryan, celibacy and sexuality. It is both a political and a religious work. By recreating the past of Bengal, Chatterji hoped to create a new present that involved a new interpretation of the past. Julius Lipner not only provides the first complete and satisfactory English translation of this important work, but supplies an extensive Introduction contextualizing the novel and its cultural and political history. Also included are notes offering the Bengali or Sanskrit terms for certain words, as well as explanatory notes for the specialized lay reader or scholar.
In the fourth part of the sprawling Ponniyin Selvan series, we learn more about the intricate complexities and histories propelling our characters towards their ultimate destiny.
What will happen in Kadambur? Beguiling, breathtaking Nandini Devi requests a rendezvous with Chozha Crown Prince Aditta Karikalan. He is determined to meet her, despite opposition from friends and family. Does Nandini mean to persuade Karikalan to give up the crown or kill him? Meanwhile, in Tanjavur, the life of the ailing Emperor Sundara Chozha is under threat. Will his assassins succeed? The mute Mandakini Devi has been forcibly taken to Tanjavur, and Poonkuzhali rushes there to help her aunt. What will happen when the betrayed Mandakini meets the royal family?
As Kalki’s enthralling saga continues to unfold apace in The Jewelled Crown, Gowri Ramnarayan’s fleet-footed translation proves equal to the challenge of capturing its heightened momentum and suspense.
It’s 100 years since Kalinga was devastated by Ashoka, and the kingdom is now re-emerging from the dust. Now, under the Mahameghavahanas, a new and able dynasty, the country has not only freed itself from foreign reign but is also experiencing a cultural and patriotic resurgence. But palace politics, internecine rivalries, the external threat of invaders as well as internal threat of traitors keep King Mahameghavahana Kharavela busy and unsettled. Unable to focus on rebuilding the kingdom to its zenith and his dream of returning to Kalinga the looted Jina idol from Magadha.
And then a stranger enters the kingdom and becomes an integral part of the court. Rudravarman is a polymath, military strategist and a brilliant warrior. But his antecedents are mysterious, and his objectives unclear. Why does he so jealously guard his past? And does he truly want to not only serve the king, but fulfil his dream of a resurgent Kalinga?
A brilliantly researched historical thriller set in the first century BCE.
For some people, home is nowhere. They feel out of place—they are adrift, the stranger in the crowd. It’s as if they are forever walking around in shoes that don’t fit.
Can they find a home, imperfect as it may be? Sometimes, all it takes is a place at the other end of the world—or a person. Nita, a teacher in Kerala, is desperate for a better-paying job and accepts one in Dubai. It is the 1990s, and Dubai is just becoming a boom town. Everything is changing. But Nita struggles to adjust to the city as an immigrant. Her job as a live-in tutor for a young girl puts her in an unfamiliar, servile role with a wealthy family. Nita starts telling the child’s mother a story from ancient India, where Darius, a sailor, arrives at an Indian port seeking his fortune. As she tells this tale, making it up as she goes, she finds that she’s no longer alone.
This is a two-headed story—the narrators Nita and Darius are nested inside each other like Russian dolls. They are both outsiders in unfamiliar places. They make dangerous choices that take them to the breaking point. And as Nita feels her safety unravel, it does for Darius as well.
Our valiant hero Vallavaraiyan Vandiyatevan has been asked to make his way to Ilankai on Princess Kundavai Devi’s request. With the help of the curious and eccentric Poonkuzhali, he does so, traversing across dangerous land and waters to finally meet ‘Ponniyin Selvan’—the beloved Chozha prince Arulmozhi Varman.
Back home, the plotting to take over the throne of the Chozha empire continues. At the centre of it all, stands the wife of the senior Pazhuvettaraiyar, the beautiful and dangerous Nandini Devi, who will stop at nothing to bring down the Chozas. Will Vandiyatevan and the Chozha princes manage to outplay Nandini and the Pazhuvettaraiyars?
An epic adventure, skilfully written by Kalki and elegantly translated by his granddaughter Gowri Ramnarayan, continues in this, the second in the Ponniyin Selvan series.
As the emperor of the Chozha kingdom, Sundara Chozha, lies unwell in Tanjavur fort, a sinister plot is being hatched—a plot to wrest the throne from Crown Prince Aditta Karikalan. Senior minister Periya Pazhuvettaraiyar is powerful and could well succeed in his plan to seat Madhurantakan, son of Sundara Chozha’s elder brother, on the throne, after Sundara Chozha’s death.
Aware of the rumblings, Aditta Karikalan entrusts his confidant Vallavaraiyan Vandiyatevan to deliver a message to the emperor and his beloved sister Kundavai Devi. Will the intrepid Vandiyatevan succeed? Or will he fall victim to the machinations? What role does the elder Pazhuvettaiyar’s wife have to play in all this? Will Kundavai Devi be able to protect her brothers’ interests?
Delving into politics, betrayal, desires and ambition in tenth-century Tamil Nadu, Ponniyin Selvan is Kalki’s magnum opus, a gripping tale that has remained popular and beloved for decades. Beautifully translated by Gowri Ramnarayan, Kalki’s granddaughter, Fresh Floods is the first in a series that is unputdownable.
Before the 1857 Uprising of India, the old Delhi, or Shahjahanabad is sprawling with life—like an ode wavering towards its end. The inhabitants of Red Fort and the splendored world around it, all subjects of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, lived on the cusp of a change with the arrival of the British. Yet, people’s own stories continued against backdrop of this transition.
At the centre of this sprawling narrative is a princess, Falak Ara, daughter of the Emperor. Beautiful and vivacious, Falak Ara is curious about the world outside the fort but never imagines being able to leave. Soon, she loses her heart to a salatin—a prince— and longs for a union with him. Her quest is made difficult by a changing Shahjahanabad, on whose horizon lurks a revolution.
Author Rana Safvi unspools the aches of a young heart as she pays homage to Old Delhi—which, like a living, breathing being, has many moods and survives a lifetime in this novel A Firestorm in Paradise.
Ram Mohan, an ambitious man in newly independent India, refuses to let his humble origins define him. On a mission to build a political career, he realizes that the only way to live a respectable life is to hold some kind of power.
When the Congress high command vetoes Ram Mohan’s inclusion in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, Saansad-ji, the state’s chief minister, appoints him as member, UP Public Service Commission, Allahabad. Though non-political, the position has a high social status, and Ram Mohan quickly takes a shine to it. Meanwhile, the JP movement continues to challenge the Congress regime, surging through large parts of India and setting the stage for Indira Gandhi’s downfall.
A sequel to the critically acclaimed The Politician, this new novel, set in the 1970s to 1980s north India, provides a captivating, vivid view of the political battles of that era, and captures the spirit, manners and social conditions of a transformational phase in Indian history.
