Nirmala and Normala are twins separated at birth *dramatic music*.
While one goes on to become a heroine, the other goes on to become a normal person. Yes, we know we should put ‘normal’ in quotes. We also know that we should issue a disclaimer that there’s no such thing as normal, but really, let’s talk about that later.
If you’ve ever sat through a movie wondering why in the world the heroine is playing with street children or why she seems so daft despite being Harvard-educated, you should listen to Nirmala’s story.
As for Normala, well, we all know her, don’t we?
With just 12 months to go before the 2010 Allied
Victory Games in New Delhi, there is pandemonium
at the Ministry for Urban Regeneration and Public
Sculpture.
Preparations are months behind schedule and
minister Badrikedar Laxmanrao Dahake not only
has to deal with an irate PM but also the Lok Sabha,
fiendish investigative journalists, and a relentless
BBC reporter who insists on interviewing him live
in English. Dahake is about to resign when he runs
into an unlikely saviour: international financial
wizard Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese.
For the first time in human history, a nation is playing host to an alien delegation. And it is Modi-led India that has this high honour. Prime Minister Modi rolls out the red carpet for the aliens. He receives them at the airport, shows them the sights in Delhi and convinces them to invest in the Make in India campaign. The leader of the alien delegation even holds a broom to promote Swachh Bharat. But what is the real reason the aliens have come to India? Are they friends? Or will they turn foes? Read this hilarious, rib-tickling novel from the authors of Unreal Elections to find out.
Ha Ha Hu Hu tells the delightful tale of an extraordinary horse-headed creature that mysteriously appears in London one fine morning, causing considerable excitement and consternation among the city’s denizens. Dressed in silks and jewels, it has the head of a horse but the body of a human and speaks in an unknown tongue. What is it? And more importantly, why is it here?
In the hilarious satire Vishnu Sharma Learns English, a Telugu lecturer is visited in a dream by the medieval poet Tikanna and the ancient scholar Vishnu Sharma with an unusual request: they want him to teach them English!
Velcheru Narayana Rao’s elegant translation is accompanied by an erudite introduction and afterword which illuminate the fascinating life and works of Viswanadha Satyanarayana.
An entertaining and surprising ride through an India you thought you knew
Sanjeev Sanyal, bestselling author of Land of the Seven Rivers, returns to enthral readers with a collection of unusual stories. Written with Sanjeev’s trademark flair, the stories crackle with irreverence and wit. In ‘The Troll’, a presumptuous blogger faces his undoing when he sets out to expose an Internet phenomenon. In the title story, a young man loses his job in the financial crisis and tries to reset his life over two beers. In ‘The Intellectuals’, a foreign researcher spends some memorable hours with Kolkata’s ageing intellectuals. From the vicious politics of a Mumbai housing society to the snobberies of Delhi’s cocktail circuit, the stories in Life over Two Beers get under the skin of a rapidly changing India-and leave you chuckling.
A fascinating portrayal of life in an Indian middle-class family by the best-selling author of English, August Upamanyu Chatterjee’s second novel brilliantly recreates life in an average Indian family at the end of the twentieth century. Jamun, the central character, is a young man, unmarried, adrift. He stays away from his family, which comprises his parents, Urmila and Shyamanand, his elder brother, Burfi, his sister-in-law, Joyce, his two nephews and the children’s ayah. Jamun returns to the family when his mother is hospitalized. Once there, he decides to stay on until one of his ailing parent dies. He barely admits to himself that there is another, probably stronger, reason for his extended stay in the family home- an old friend Kasturi, now married and pregnant, who has returned to the city (that she associates with Jamun) . . . Flitting back and forth in time and space, and writing in a language of unsurpassed richness and power, Upamanyu Chatterjee presents a funny, bitterly accurate and vivid portrait of the awesome burden of family ties.
In this sequel to Upamanyu Chatterjee’s debut novel, English, August, Agastya Sen- older, funnier, more beleaguered, almost endearing- and some of his friends are back. Comic and Kafkaesque, The Mammaries of the Welfare State is a masterwork of satire by a major writer at the height of his powers.
Innocent and unremarkable, but for his near crippling obsessions with sex and running, Bhola goes through life falling for all the wrong people. At School, he lusts indiscriminately after his teachers, both male and female, and is equally attracted to eunuchs. While in college, he has vaguely demeaning affairs with his landlady, and a vegetable vendor-cum-nurse and her husband. Later, he marries (a woman with a voice like liquid gold), fathers a daughter and suspects he is close to balance and beauty. Then his past catches up with him.
Upamanyu Chatterjee’s genius for black humour and the absurd has never been more compelling than in this unforgettable portrait of a lost life.
They cannot live with each other, they cannot live without each other. As children, they squabbled all day long. When they were old enough, they married two brothers, and took with them their feuds to their in-laws. Boisterous and fiery pataakhas, sisters Badki and Chhutki are the bane of each other’s existence. Their days start and end with petty squabbles and violent clashes, marked by unapologetic use of free-flowing abuses. But one day things go too far and a decision made upturns the trajectory of both their lives.
Based on Charan Singh Pathik’s eponymous short story, Vishal Bhardwaj’s adaptation is a hilarious tour de force that obliquely and mischievously takes into its ambit notions of patriarchy and diplomacy between nations. This translation, which includes the novella and the screenplay that the film-maker developed from the short story, not only brings to the reader a rustic, elemental tale rooted in the soil, but also provides a unique glimpse into the art of adapting a literary work into film.
In April 2006 Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese; a stupendously naïve but academically gifted young man (he was ranked 41st in his class); graduates from one of India’s best business schools with a Day-Zero job at the Mumbai office of Dufresne Partners, a mediocre mid-market management consulting firm largely run by complete morons. Varghese finds that he fits into the culture remarkably well. Or does he? Through a stunning series of blunders, mishaps and inadvertent errors, Robin begins to make his superiors rue the day they were driven by desperation into hiring him.With things going spectacularly wrong in his professional and personal life, will Robin manage to achieve his short-term goal of being promoted to Associate in under a year? Will love conquer all and will Gouri walk with him through Dadar Department Stores with her hand in the rear pocket of his jeans? Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese is for all of those who’ve ever sat depressed in cubicles…and wanted to kill themselves with office stationery. Especially that letter opener thing. Join Robin as he navigates his first insane year at Dufresne Partners in this first volume of the Dork trilogy. Praise for the book: ‘A stunning new voice in Indian literature! In Dork Vadukut has written the book I’ve always wanted to write’ – William Dalrymple’s biggest fan’s youngest sister. ‘I love this book. I love its voice. I love the author. He’s like a delicate crème brulee’ – Padma Laxmi’s ex-husband’s hairdresser. ‘I read this book and instantly knew that Robin Varghese is the role of a lifetime. Inshallah I will be a part of the movie when it’s made’- Shah Rukh Khan’s dentist’s accountant.
