In Moazzamabad, UP, too large to be a town and too backward to be a city, a young man stabs a police inspector and is beaten to death. The last words he speaks are, ‘My name is Jimmy the Terrorist.’ Journalists descend on the town, ‘like shrill birds’, and a long-time resident decides to tell a story that none of them will know.
Jimmy was once Jamaal, son of Rafiq Ansari of Rasoolpur Mohalla, a Muslim neighbourhood in a Hindu town. And his story goes back a long way: to the time when Moazzamabad was named, after Aurangzeb’s son; when Rafiq was seduced by the wealth and refinements of Shabbir Manzil and married Shaista; when the Hanuman temple grew ten storeys high and the head priest was elected mayor; when Shaista died, a mosque was brought down in Ayodhya and Rafiq became a mullah. As Jamaal grows up, watching both his father and his neighbourhood change and curfew reach Moazzamabad, he is changed himself. He becomes Jimmy, one among the countless marginalized trying to find a place in the world, dimly aware that the choices that shape their lives are being made in distant places, where they have no influence.
Shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize 2009, this spare, compelling novel, as intimate as it is political, confirms Omair Ahmad’s reputation as one of the most distinctive and exciting new voices in Indian fiction.
Evergreen Books of Penguin Box Set is an extraordinary collection of some of the finest fiction and non-fiction titles published by Penguin publishers.
Evergreen Books of Penguin Box Set is a treasure trove of carefully selected fiction and nonfiction titles. This book is collection of some of Penguin’s wide-ranging list of classics and bestsellers by some of the most renowned writers in the Indian Subcontinent. The box set comprises of very appealing and delightful stories which will make for a riveting read for people of all age groups. Some of the titles included in the boxset are The Kitemaker, My Experiments with Truth, The Jungle Book and Valmiki Ramayana, among other selections.
As soon as I make it home I run upstairs to my room and tear my clothes off. I twist my head to get a good view of my back. And that’s when I see it. A wide line of soft, dark hair running from the nape of my neck down to the base of my spine. A stripe right down the center of my back, like a skunk. I’m not just a hairy Pakistani Muslim girl any more.I am a skunk girl.’ Nina Khan is sixteen, and has a few problems at hand. She is the only South Asian student at Deer Hook High; she doesn’t care about calculus, unlike her over-achieving older sister; she has a genetic disposition for excessive body hair; and if her parents had a whiff of her thoughts about Asher Richelli, the cute new Italian transfer student, she would be grounded forever. In this funny, wryly witty debut novel by Sheba Karim, Nina navigates her way through the first year of high school, dealing with friends who don’t even need to wax, and who don’t have a ghazal-listening father waiting round the corner. She realizes that though balancing two cultures is never easy, with a little spunk and a lot of humor, one can always find a way.
Amir Khusrau-poet, courtier, mystic, musician-straddled the worlds of politics and religion and helped forge a distinctive synthesis of Muslim and Hindu cultures. His poetry in Persian appealed equally to the Delhi sultans and to his Sufi sheikh, Nizamuddin Auliya. It was appreciated not only in India, where his Hindavi poetry has survived through a lively oral tradition, but also across a cosmopolitan Persianate world that stretched from Turkey to Bengal.
Khusrau’s poetry has thrived for centuries and continues to be read and recited to this day. But despite his vast literary output, there is a dearth of translations of his work. In the Bazaar of Love offers new translations of Khusrau’s poems in Persian and Hindavi, many of which are being translated into English for the first time. Paul Losensky’s translations of Khusrau’s ghazals, including his mystical and romantic poems, comprise fresh renditions of old favourites while also bringing to light several little-known works. Sunil Sharma brings us many of Khusrau’s short poems, including those belonging to the qawwali repertoire, as well as a mixed prose-and-verse narration ‘The Romance of Duval Rani and Khizr Khan’.
The first comprehensive selection of Amir Khusrau’s poetry, In the Bazaar of Love covers a wide range of genres and forms, evoking the magic of one of the best-loved poets of the Indian subcontinent.
Newly-wed Sancha is excited about sailing with her husband, an officer in the merchant navy, on board the Sea Hyena. But Chief Officer Aaron Andrews is keeping a secret from his wife-a month before she arrived, the chief cook was found dead in the meat locker, his death ruled an accident. First Engineer Harsh Castillo is enamoured of his best friend Aaron’s bride, but that’s the least of his problems. The demons he’s battling have a stronger pull on him.When money is stolen from the captain’s safe, the inquisitive Sancha makes a game of finding the thief. What she finds, instead, is a murder. With the evidence implicating her husband, Sancha is at a crossroads-should she tell Raghav Shridhar, the investigating officer, about the money or should she give her secretive husband the benefit of the doubt?Love on the Rocks by Ismita Tandon Dhankher is a romantic thriller that tests the bonds of love and marriage against a backdrop of suspense, intrigue and psychological undercurrents.
Rabindranath Tagore reinvented the Bengali novel with Farewell Song; blurring the lines between prose and poetry and creating an effervescent blend of romance and satire. Through Amit and Labanya and a brilliantly etched social milieu; the novel addresses contemporary debates about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing; the nature of love and conjugality; and the influence of Western culture on Bengali society. Set against the idyllic backdrop of Shillong and the mannered world of elite Calcutta society; this sparkling novel expresses the complex vision and the mastery of style that characterized Tagore’s later works.
Right in the middle of a buzzing Malaysian city is a magnificent forest, now a piece of prime real estate and the perfect setting for a swanky theme park. The trouble, however, is Sellamma, the old woman who owns the forest land, and refuses to budge. Sumitra, who works for the Social Reconstruction Department, is given the challenging task of convincing the old lady to move into a welfare home. A great believer in her people skills and a focused professional, Sumitra is used to tackling all kind of cases. But, somehow, Sellamma eludes her manoeuvres. Instead, Sumitra finds herself falling under the spell of the lazy afternoons she spends with the old woman and her dog, listening to stories by the gushing river. Bewitched by the hidden sounds of the forest that punctuate the ageless woman’s narrative, she begins to reflect on her life and choices. On her death, Sellamma leaves Sumitra with yet another choice by bequeathing the land to her. Set in a mesmerizing landscape, and illuminating the eternal struggle between the old and the new, Between Lives reveals to us a journey of self-reflection and the hope of recovering what is lost forever to humanity.
It is their last evening together. Maya, Sandra and Derek, graduate students at UC Santa Cruz and house-mates for three years, are preparing for dinner with Uncle Prithvi, the house-owner. It’s a cheerful and quirky household: Sandra is prone to ‘Orkut attacks’; Derek silently pines for the wistful-looking Afghan boy in the photo on his wall; Maya, who has the hots for Derek, is inexplicably terrified of the ocean; and the elusive Uncle Prithvi communicates through notes he leaves all over the place.
Sad at parting, perhaps forever, and half tipsy, Maya, Sandra and Uncle Prithvi play a game of wapping stories as they wait for Derek to arrive. As the evening progresses, we learn their deep, dark secrets and hidden fears. Sandra, abandoned at birth, talks about growing up in an orphanage with her precious twin, disabled Solana, only to be separated by circumstances; Uncle Prithvi rues the loss of his beloved daughter, whom he betrayed when he sought a new life with Karen in the US. Maya, the narrator, can’t bring herself to open up-except when alone. And Derek avoids revealing himself altogether as he doesn’t turn up at all.
Finely crafted and deeply felt, Table for Four is a rumination on the burden of secrets, of learning to let go and accepting the betrayals and losses in our lives.
