Chauhan’s writing is resistance literature. It echoes the harrowing screams of a people long suppressed.
Fear and Other Stories is a reminder of the inherent dangers of the Dalit life, a life subjected to unimaginable violence and terror even in its most mundane moments. In this collection of short stories, veteran Gujarati writer Dalpat Chauhan narrates these lived experiences of exasperation and anger with startling vividity. His characters chronicle a deep history of resistance, interrogating historical, mythological and literary legends, foregrounding the perspectives of the disenfranchised.
Chauhan deftly wields his prose to counter dominant narratives, pointing out gaps and voicing the silences within. In ?The Payback, for a change, we see famished savarnas begging Dalit families for food that they scorn otherwise. The eponymous Fear follows the heroic but doomed resistance of Dalit youths fighting against savarna men with the ‘right’ to enter their homes and molest women inside. And the allegorical Cold Blood features a doctor who tries to leave behind his identity with his surname, only to be reminded of it when the savarnas accept his blood, but not water from his hands.
Hemang Ashwinkumar’s nimble translation introduces the English reader to Chauhan’s heart-wrenching stories while unmasking a rural Gujarat unrecognizable from its supposedly vibrant idylls. His introduction to the book not just contextualises Chauhan’s work, but is also a touching and thought-provoking commentary on the larger canvas of Dalit literature.
The political stature of the Pallava crown prince, Narasimha Varmar, has grown considerably after defeating the king of Ganga Nadu at the historic Pullalur battle. But he has more obstacles to overcome. Emperor Mahendra Pallavar, after restraining the Chalukya forces for nine months at the northern border of the Pallava kingdom, is on his way back to Kanchi and continues to oppose the crown prince’s relationship with the dancer, Sivakami.
Meanwhile, the Machiavellian Naganandi adigal has convinced Sivakami and Aayanar to leave their home in the forest against Narasimha Varmar wishes. And the Chalukya army marches towards Kanchi, causing destruction and damage across the countryside. Yet, the emperor remains unwilling to cross swords with them. Expecting the enemy to lay siege to the Kanchi fort, Mamallar must find a way to balance his duties as crown prince and his love for Sivakami.
Expertly weaving suspense, romance and drama, Kalki’s gripping narrative describes the tremendous efforts of the Pallavas to counter the Chalukya invasion and the growing intimacy between Mamallar and Sivakami in the action-packed second volume of Sivakami’s Vow: The Siege of Kanchi.
Folklore pervades childhoods, families and communities and is the language of the illiterate. Even in large, modern cities, folklore-proverbs, lullabies, folk medicine, folktales-is only a suburb away, a cousin or a grandmother away. Wherever people live, folklore grows. India is a country of many languages, religions, sects and cultures. It is a land of many myths and countless stories. Translated from twenty-two Indian languages, these one hundred and ten tales cover most of the regions of India and represent favorite’s narratives from the subcontinent. A.K. Ramanujan’s outstanding selection is an indispensable guide to the richness and vitality of India’s ageless oral folklore tradition.
The Indian Epics Retold collects three of R. K. Narayan’s best narratives on Hindu tradition and culture. The Ramayana and The Mahabharata are an intrinsic part of our legacy. Narayan’s Ramayan is based on the Tamil version of the verse by the poet Kamban. Narayan’s love for Rama’s character and his admiration for Kamban’s beautiful poetry is conveyed through this work. For The Mahabharata and for Gods, Demons and Others, Narayan referred to the original Sanskrit version of Mahabharata and other puranas. The stories follow the original text as closely as possible and make for a wonderful read for the young and old.
Saadat Hasan Manto’s first collection of stories was published in the 1940s, but his stories have an enduring relevance. Now read by more people than ever before, the simple clarity of his stories about arginalized people, his astute understanding of the complexity of human nature and the poignancy of his stories on Partition transcend spatial and temporal boundaries many of his characters are legendary and his taut narratives are a great source of insight into the human condition. Widely regarded as one of the greatest short-story writers of the Subcontinent, Manto is now, a hundred years after his birth, also acknowledged as one of the most powerful voices of his time. An enigma in his lifetime, and plagued by financial troubles, alcoholism and legal persecution in the last years of his life, he draws a posthumous wave of near-universal admiration. Aatish Taseer’s sensitive translation captures the lyricism and power of Manto’s voice. Manto, Selected Stories, with two new stories, is a collection to be savoured by new readers and old fans of Manto alike.
Mano Majra is a place, Khushwant Singh tells us at the beginning of this classic novel, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, at the end of the summer, the ‘ghost train’ arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refuges, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endures and transcends the ravages of war.
Regarded as one of the most heart-rending testimonials of the partition of 1947, the Train to Pakistan is an ideal novel for those who wishes to learn more about India’s past and is looking for more than the socio-political scenario behind the partition.
Bakha is a proud and attractive young man. Nonetheless he is an Untouchable- an outcast in India’s caste system. Into this vivid recreation of a single day in the sweeper and toilet-cleaner Bakha’s life, Anand pours a vitality, fire, and richness of detail that earn his place as one of the most important Indian writers of the twentieth century.
As a young boy, Amitav Ghosh’s narrator travels across time through the tales of those around him, traversing through unreliable planes of memory, unmindful of physical, political and chronological borders. But as he grows older, he is haunted by a seemingly random act of violence. Bits and pieces of stories, both half-remembered and imagined, come together in his mind until he arrives at an intricate, interconnected picture of the world where borders and boundaries mean nothing, mere shadow lines that we draw dividing people and nations. Out of a complex web of memories, relationships and images, Amitav Ghosh builds an intensely vivid, funny and moving story. Exposing the idea of the nation state as an illusion, an arbitrary dissection of people, Ghosh depicts the absurd manner in which your home can suddenly become your enemy.
Who is Devdhwaja: Nagendra or Om? Parimal and LSD struggle to trust each other while Nagendra is resurrected from the dead, unharmed and more powerful than ever before. Parashurama and Kripacharya are trapped in the collapsed Om’s past while Vrishkapi is fighting against certain death, which has already consumed Milarepa. Leaving the mighty Ashwatthama clueless, the other immortals are dismantled from all fronts. Where are the remaining words hidden? Will Nagendra find them all and complete the verse, or will the immortals be able to stop him? Unravel the unexpected mystery of the doomed immortals, running out of time.
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