Amandeep, Murugesh, Rufus and Sundar are bucks who talk dirty for the same reason that they remove the mufflers from their motorcycle exhausts-it makes them feel like men. Like libertines.
To their hormonal despair, when Professor Ram stages his remake of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at their college fest, he casts these four as fairies. The farce that follows gradually takes over the lives of the rest of the characters in this achingly funny novel about the pratfalls that accompany caste pride.
On and off the campus of Chennai University, you will encounter onion-and-garlic-free TamBrahms who rewrite Shakespeare to uphold the Hindu order, smug NRIs who call the shots in matrimonials, visiting Canadians who are aghast at the plight of Dalits (pronounced ‘daylights’) and, at the apex of the whole tumbling structure, a bibulous builder who invokes the gods even as he defrauds his clients.
Tailing the characters around this plot is an unseen but all-seeing spectator. You may never guess who that is, but will laugh all the way to the answer.
A cross-border romance like no other!
Zoya, a twenty-five-year-old Pakistani pop star, meets emerging Indian cricketer Kabeer while he is on tour in the country to play a match to promote Indo-Pak friendship.
One thing leads to another and soon Kabeer and Zoya are inseparable. As their love for each other grows stronger, Zoya leaves Pakistan to be with Kabeer, only to return a few months later following a misunderstanding.
In Pakistan, Zoya is gloomy and sulking, rethinking her connection with Kabeer.
In India, a confused Kabeer is still hopeful of meeting Zoya.
As their relationship is put to the test in the wake of mounting tensions between the two countries, they both stumble across a long-buried truth that will forever change the course of their lives.
In Vikram Chandra’s astonishing first novel, the gods Hanuman, Ganesha and Yama descend on a house in an Indian city to vie for the soul of a wounded monkey. A bargain is struck: the monkey must tell a story, and if he can keep his audience entertained, he shall live.The result is Red Earth and Pouring Rain, a tale of nineteenth century India: of Sanjay, a poet, and Sikander, a warrior; of hoofbeats thundering through the streets of Calcutta and the birth of a luminous child; of great wars and love affairs and a city gone ‘mad with poetry’. And woven into this tapestry of stories is a second, totally modern narrative, the adventures of a young Indian criss-crossing America in a car with his friends and his eventual return to his homeland.
Two-time Winner of the Giller Prize
Munir Khan, a recent widower from Toronto, meets the charming and witty Mohini Singh, a married liberal newspaper columnist, in the bar of the high-brow Delhi Recreational Club. An enigma surrounds the Kenya-born, westernized and agnostic Munir, and an inexplicable attraction takes root. Delhi’s streets, monuments and ruins become the setting of their passionate affair.
A terror attack shakes the city just as Jetha Lal and his acolytes, self-proclaimed protectors of cows and Hindu women, raise decibel levels at the Club. Meanwhile, Mohini’s parents’ wounded memory of the Partition and a family trip to Shirdi only serve to exacerbate her anxieties and deep sense of guilt. And even as Jetha Lal’s menacing shadow looms over them, Munir and Mohini cannot let each other go. At what cost their passion?
Written with trademark sensitivity and a sharp, affecting vision, A Delhi Obsession is M.G. Vassanji’s most urgent novel yet. Set in contemporary times, it unravels an unexpected yet prophetic story of passion, love and faith, amidst the placid environment of an elite Delhi club. Cutting close to the bone, this searing novel will compel you to confront your profoundest dilemmas.
Lavanya Gogoi is from the scenic hills of Shillong while Rajveer Saini belongs to the shahi city of Patiala. Worlds apart from one another, the two land up next to each other on a flight from Mumbai to Chandigarh. It’s love at first flight, at least for one of them. For the other . . . well, it’s going to take more than a plane ride!
And when love does finally happen, there are more obstacles to overcome. Rajveer has to stand up against his own if he and Lavanya are to be together. However, life has other plans. Things go horribly wrong and Rajveer now has to fight a different battle-one in which he is the devil as well as the deliverer. His love for Lavanya will be put to the ultimate test. And there are no guarantees.
Will You Still Love Me? is deeply moving, disturbingly close to reality, and love at its worst and its best.
Can you really forget your first love?
Rehaan is a hard-working and down-to-earth kind of guy. When he moves to London, he is hopeful to meet his childhood love, Zynah, whom he hasn’t been able to forget even after all these years.
It turns out that Zynah is just the same, just as he remembers her-fun-loving, adventurous and beautiful.
However, there is just one small difference-she is getting married.
What will Rehaan do-risk ruining their friendship and tell her he loves her or let her marry the man she has chosen?
Linda, in her thirties, begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. In everybody’s eyes, she has a perfect life: happy marriage, children, and a career. Yet what she feels is an enormous sense of dissatisfaction. All that changes when she encounters a successful politician who had, years earlier, been her high-school boyfriend. As she rediscovers the passion missing from her life, she will face a life-altering choice.
But sit down, breathe deep, and ask a woman. Any woman. They are there.
When twin sisters Layla and Tanya are found starving in their upmarket apartment, there is frenzy in the media. How often does one find two striking, twenty-something women, one half-dead, the other not speaking, living in a state of disrepair and chaos, for no apparent reason? Theories about them are rampant, but disillusioned journalist Raman is loath to follow the story. That is, until Tanya begins to talk to him, and the darker truth behind the sisters’ lives starts to unravel.
A richly atmospheric, deeply claustrophobic story with a stunning denouement, of two women confronting the everyday realities of their city and country, So all is Peace provides an unflinching insight into love, lust, fear, grief, and the decisions we make, through a cast of sharply drawn characters brought together by an unspoken wrong.
When Amal finds out that her disastrous Tinder match is now going to be her boss, she can’t be more annoyed. Qais Ahmed is everything she never wants to be: narcissistic, manipulative and arrogant.
However, despite her relentless efforts, she is unable to resist his charm and wit and is drawn to him once she gets to know the real him.
She soon discovers that he isn’t just a part of her professional life but has a deep connection to a past she is trying to forget.
Will this disturbing secret tear them apart or bind them together forever?
ITC Engage, one of India’s leading fragrance brands is back with its much-loved bestselling series Pocketful O’Stories 2.0 in collaboration with the bestselling romance novelist Durjoy Datta.
This year’s theme, @LOVEIMPROMTWO was inspired by the newly launched 2-in-1 Pocket Perfume which makes sure that you are always ready for romance. People were invited to submit microtales on the unexpected and impromptu moments of love. Almost 25,000 entries were received within a month, making the second edition bigger than the first. Here’s presenting a compilation of the best stories that also includes Durjoy’s own microtales on unexpected moments of romance.
