A seamless blend of fable and philosophy, the Bhagavata Purana is perhaps the most revered text in the Vaishnava tradition. It brings to life the legends of gods, asuras, sages and kings-all the while articulating the crucial ethical and philosophical tenets that underpin Hindu spiritualism.
The narrative unfolds through a series of conversations and interconnected stories. We are told how the sage Vyasa was inspired by Narada to compose the Bhagavata Purana as a means to illumine the path to a spiritual life. We learn of the devotion of Prahlada, the austerity of Dhruva, and the blinding conceit of Daksha. Also recounted are tales of the many incarnations of Vishnu, especially Krishna, whom we see grow from a beloved and playful child to a fierce protector of the faithful.
Catagory: Literature & Fiction
Living Hell
All Nadeem Sayed Khatib, aka Nadeem Chipkali, wants to do is stay in his apartment all day, watch some TV and ignore his mounting worries. He is not in the best shape, cash-wise and otherwise, but let’s be honest: people seriously have it out for him. Sometimes, dangerous people.
Things change when his landlord hauls him up for not paying the rent and practically blackmails him into extracting money from another tenant-Makhija-in the building. Nadeem grumbles his way to Makhija’s apartment, expecting protests and other minor annoyances. What he does not expect is to find him dead-murdered-in the bathroom, a discovery which turns Nadeem’s already messed up on life on its head and lands him deep in the heart of a heinous conspiracy.
As he races against time, a particularly unhelpful police force, the dead man’s bereaved and unusually attractive ex-wife, and the Bombay underworld, Nadeem relies on his wits and an unexpected motley crew of people who, sometimes, want him dead too.
Set against the backdrop of a low-life Bombay that comes alive at night, Living Hell is a fast-paced noir murder mystery with dark humour and an accidental hero.
Love Bi the Way
Rihana is a painter who is trying to find inspiration in love. Zara is a businesswoman trying to make a niche for her company in a male-dominated world. Rihana is fire, Zara is ice; Rihana is openly sensual, while Zara is more cautious with her heart-they are opposites that attract. They are different people bound together by their house-‘Cupid’-and their pet golden retriever, Tiger.
As both of them navigate their fulfilling careers and try to leave behind troubled pasts, they find solace in each other. But Tiger’s not the only male in their lives. Rihana finds herself a string of sexy men, while Zara emerges out of her shell and meets an actual prince who sweeps her off her feet. But can these relationships last? And what road will they take when love happens bi the way?
The Glory Of Patan
The kingdom of Patan faces an ominous future. King Karnadev lies on his deathbed. His son, Jaydev, is too young to ascend the throne. Rumours abound of scheming warlords intent on establishing their own independence and powerful merchants plotting to wrest control from Patan Fort. There is also the shadowy monk Anandsuri and his vision to unite Patan under one religion: Jainism.
In the eye of this gathering storm are Queen Minaldevi and the shrewd chief minister Munjal Mehta. Both have striven to maintain order in Patan and ensure that Jaydev’s succession is secure. But the attraction between them is threatened by betrayal and intrigue, with dramatic consequences for the future of Patan.
A sprawling, fast-paced saga in the oeuvre of Alexandre Dumas, The Glory of Patan is the first book in an epic trilogy about the exploits of the magnificent Chalukya dynasty at a crucial period in the history of Gujarat.
The Beauty of the Moment
Susan is the new girl-she’s sharp and driven, and strives to meet her parents’ expectations of excellence. Malcolm is the bad boy-he started raising hell at age fifteen, after his mom died of cancer, and has had a reputation ever since.
Susan’s parents are on the verge of divorce. Malcolm’s dad is a known adulterer.
Susan hasn’t told anyone, but she wants to be an artist. Malcolm doesn’t know what he wants-until he meets her.
Love is messy and families are messier, but in spite of their burdens, Susan and Malcolm fall for each other. The ways they drift apart and come back together are the picture of being true to oneself.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
‘At magic hour; when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke . . .’
So begins The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy’s incredible follow-up to The God of Small Things. We meet Anjum, who used to be Aftab, who runs a guest house in an Old Delhi graveyard and gathers around her the lost, the broken and the cast out. We meet Tilo, an architect, who, although she is loved by three men, lives in a ‘country of her own skin’. When Tilo claims an abandoned baby as her own, her destiny and that of Anjum become entangled as a tale that sweeps across the years and a teeming continent takes flight. . .
The God of Small Things
Winner of the 1997 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
‘Richly deserving the rapturous praise it has received on both sides of the Atlantic . . . The God of Small Things achieves genuine tragic resonance. It is indeed a masterpiece’ – Observer
Still, to say that it all began when Sophie Mol came to Ayemenem is only one way of looking at it . . .
It could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch Ascendancy, before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin’s conquest of Calicut. Before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag. That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.
Red Card
One team. One year. Everything to lose.
When Rishabh Bala reaches the tenth standard, life takes a turn for the complicated. The bewildered boy feels the pressure of the looming board exams and finds himself hopelessly-and hormonally-in love. But what he yearns for most is victory on the field: at least one trophy with his beloved school football team.
Set in the suburban Thane of 2006, here is a coming-of-age story that runs unique as it does familiar. Hopscotching from distracted classrooms and tired tutorials to triumphs and tragedies on muddy grounds, this is the journey of Rishabh and his friends from peak puberty to the cusp of manhood.
The Children of Destruction
We used to live in a world of magic . . .
For Alice, life as a teenager is hard enough without turning into a supernatural herald of destruction. And you would think that after causing minor hurricanes with a major sneeze, being visited by a talking fox and ending up on a journey with death around every corner, things can’t get much worse.
Wrong.
They can.
Between a blind and telekinetic mass murderer, a girl bound to a shadow-demon and a genetically engineered pseudo messiah, a whole generation of weird is ready to come of age. And when it does, the world will change.
If it survives that long.
A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There
Delhi, 1947. The city surges with Partition refugees. Eager to escape the welter of pain and confusion that surrounds her, young Krishna applies on a whim to a position at a preschool in the princely state of Sirohi, itself on the cusp of transitioning into the republic of India. She is greeted on arrival with condescension for her refugee status, and treated with sexist disdain by Zutshi Sahib, the man charged with hiring for the position. Undaunted, Krishna fights back. But when an opportunity to become governess to the child maharaja Tej Singh Bahadur presents itself-and with it a chance to make Sirohi her new home once and for all-there is no telling how long this idyll will last.
Part novel, part memoir, part feminist anthem, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There is not only a powerful tale of Partition loss and dislocation but also charts the odyssey of a spirited young woman determined to build a new identity for herself on her own terms.