These strange, funny, intriguing tales from small-town Uttar Pradesh have been passed down orally from one generation to the next. They are likely to make one exclaim, ‘This couldn’t have happened!’, even as the narrators swear they are nothing but fact.
The bizarre chronicle of a lazy daughter-in-law, the court clerk who loved eating chaat, two cousins inseparable even in death, a blind teacher who fell in love with a woman with beautiful eyes, and other wild tales from Bareilly, Lucknow, Hapur, Badaun, Sapnawat and Pilibhit-places big and small-in that fascinating part of India called Uttar Pradesh.
Catagory: Literature & Fiction
Noor
Ayesha is a twenty-something reporter in Karachi, one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Her assignments range from showing up at bomb sites and picking her way through scattered body parts to interviewing her boss’s niece, the couture-cupcake designer. In between dicing with death and absurdity, Ayesha despairs over the likelihood of ever meeting a nice guy, someone like her old friend Saad, whose shoulder she cries on after every romantic misadventure. Her choices seem limited to narcissistic, adrenaline-chasing reporters who’ll do anything to get their next story-to the spoilt offspring of the Karachi elite who’ll do anything to cure their boredom. Her most pressing problem, however, is how to straighten her hair during the chronic power outages. This is Bridget Jones’s Diary meets The Diary of a Social Butterfly-a comedy of manners in a city with none.
Lovetorn
Dear sixteen-year-olds of the world . . .
. . . I’m in a crisis right now and need your help. So, I was engaged to the love of my life. You know how it is in small towns: you meet a nice boy, especially if he’s from a known family, and get fixed for life. You are waiting to be together and . . . Bam!
Your father finds his dream job and you’re forced to move with your family to the US. No questions asked.
It was quite awkward at first, my clothes, my hair, my accent . . . even my scent. I stood out friendless, weird.
But things didn’t stay the same for very long. I was suddenly drawn into a charity organization and then to the cutest and sweetest boy in the entire school!
Tell me, can you possibly be in love and out of love at the same time? Especially when the guy you are engaged to; is certain you’re coming back.
Waiting for your response,
Yours, Lovetorn
A Half-baked Love Story
Have you ever:
Fallen in love at first sight?
Gone to your first date with an empty wallet?
Been caught kissing your girl by her father?
Risked missing your IIT exam to meet her for the last time?
Aarav has.
Aarav is a rich brat who sleeps with every girl he is even mildly attracted to. He transforms from a shy teenager to an inconsiderate adult until an important realization hits him. Discover the pangs of his roller-coaster life as he reveals his deepest secrets.
Now a national bestseller, A Half-baked Love Story is the story of two very different individuals as they come to terms with the pangs and pleasures of first love while battling the situations that life has placed them in. Let the characters guide you through this beautiful tale of love, loss and longing.
A Girl & A River
It is the 1930s and the fire of the freedom movement from distant Bengal and Delhi is warming the languid bones of the small town in Mysore, where Kaveri and Setu grow up. Theirs is a liberal, prosperous household and the family takes its privileges for granted. Mylaraiah, their father, believes that they are twice protected from such delusions as “swaraj”, once by the British and then by the maharaja. While Setu absorbs their father’s unquestioning veneration of the British, Kaveri, profoundly affected by Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to their town, comes to recognize their attempts to be ‘more English than the English’ as rather shameful. In an attempt to follow her heart and take charge of her own future, Kaveri defies her father and participates in the Quit India march organized by Shyam, the hot-headed revolutionary she is attracted to. Angered and jealous, and loyal to his father, Setu is forced into betraying his sister. The small town is shaken into life quite brutally when it faces a police firing for the first time in its history. But Kaveri is safe and home, or so Setu thinks . . . Fifty years later, Setu’s daughter tries to unravel the circumstances of her uneasy upbringing, of the grit-in-the-eye feeling to her childhood; understand her cold father, her self-effacing mother and their refusal to talk about their past. Two books and a letter found in a tea tin in the attic lead her to Kaveri, and it is Kaveri whose fate remains shrouded in mystery, who has the answer to her questions. But even with all the pieces of the jigsaw in hand, the picture eludes her. She is forced to come to terms with the insidiousness of family bonds as she realizes that the truth, if it at all exists, is made of elisions and imperfections.
Half Love Half Arranged
Meet Rhea Kanwar: Thirty, unmarried and tending to fat.
One morning Rhea realizes it’s time she did something about her life, or she would turn into Bubbles Auntie, her mom’s best friend, who says things like ‘I’m a recycled virgin’. Bubbles Auntie also has to be invited to every family celebration, because ‘she has no one’.
So Rhea dives into the marriage market. Each time she meets a new guy, he’s perfect, but then each guy has a weirder problem than the last. Vyash freaks out when he realizes Rhea isn’t on the pill; Jay has a KEWL tattoo; Mazher might be too much of a gentleman; and Sid is really, REALLY bad in bed, but practically perfect outside it. And then there’s Arf, her best friend she’s been in love with all this time. How is she going to choose?
Awash with caricature and banter, Half Love Half Arranged debuts a voice that could well be the next Anuja Chauhan.
The Wedding Photographer
On a seventeen-hour-long flight, a chance upgrade to business class lands journalist Risha Kohli next to handsome young real-estate tycoon, Arjun Khanna. What’s more? Risha has been moonlighting as a wedding photographer and her next assignment is Arjun’s sister’s wedding: the most talked-about social event of the year!
But Arjun doesn’t trust journalists and suspects that this smart, sexy and incredibly spunky girl is only using their mutual attraction as a ploy to invade his privacy for a newspaper scoop. And Risha, unaware of Arjun’s personal demons, is worried that this irresistible boy’s unnerving behaviour will jeopardize her biggest professional gig so far.
What follows is a rollercoaster of snarky quips, sizzling chemistry and simmering drama amidst a Big Fat Punjabi Wedding.
Boo! A Collection of Thirteen Stories That Will Send a Chill Down Your Spine
Boo is a collection of well-crafted spooky stories about a he-ghoul, a departed son’s soul, whispers and visitations from beyond, night howls, unearthly claws that erupt from bellies and the very first ghost in the world, among others. Penned by Shashi Deshpande, Kanishk Tharoor, K.R. Meera, Jerry Pinto, Usha K.R., Jahnavi Barua, Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, Jaishree Misra, Kiran Manral, Madhavi S. Mahadevan, Durjoy Datta and Shinie Antony, the tales in Boo are sure to send a chill down your spine.
You Are All I Need
Whether it is a distant lover or someone you see every day but can’t confess to; whether it is a love that grows silently or a love that’s not acceptable by society; whether it is a love that will never be yours or a love that is pure and untainted by jealousy-love will always finds a way to survive, to make life more beautiful, more liveable. That’s why we say, ‘Love makes the world go round!’
You Are All I Need is a collection of touching stories selected by Ravinder Singh to bring to the readers the myriad facets of love. This book will make you laugh, cry, think and feel, all at the same time. It is an eclectic collection of lo ve stories that will warm the cockles of your heart.
And…Perhaps Love
A new normal has replaced the established order. Distant relationships, virtual work, blurred futures and measuring our way back to this reality occupy us every day. Negotiating these changes, Sanil Sachar’s And . . . Perhaps Love will work as your companion. It is a silent observer for when you want to read it, and a patient listener when you wish to communicate with it. Capturing the ideas of love, darkness and the attempt to find balance in life, this is a book for now and forever.