It’s raining in Shillong. Eight-year-old Sophie Das has just realised
she is adopted, but there is also the baby kicking inside her mother’s
stomach whom she’s dying to meet. IAS aspirant Aman Moondy
is planning a fi rst-of-its-kind Happening and praying the lovely
Concordella will come. College lecturer Firdaus Ansari is going
to fi nish her thesis, have a hard talk with her boyfriend, and
then get the hell out. Poetic, funny, tender, Lunatic in My Head
is an unforgettable portrait of a small town and of three
people joined to each other in an intricate web,
determined to break out of their destinies.
Catagory: Fiction
Fiction main category
Sita’s Ascent
Sita has been sent to Valmiki’s ashram, at Rama’s command never to return. This extraordinary novel is her story—she who, as much as Rama, is the heart of Ramayana, one of the greatest living epics. It is also the story of Lakshmana, crushed by guilt on Sita’s abduction; of Soorpanakka, shocked at Ravana’s being struck by love, alien to the rakshasas’ code; and of Rama’s turmoil when confronted by public gossip about Sita, his beloved wife. Through the remembrances of these and other characters, Sita comes alive as a figure of womanhood.
Inspired by myriad age-old and culturally diverse retellings, Vayu Naidu creates a rich, deeply moving and original work of fiction, Sita’s Ascent illuminates the physical and emotive landscape of a woman in exile, who crosses the desert of loss and ascends the abyss of abandonment with the power of love that transforms the narrators and the listeners.
From The Eye Of My Mind
I am eighteen years old and five feet six inches tall. I have big eyes, long fingers, and I am healthy because I eat my food on time. I also have a mole on my left palm. Grandma says, ‘Mole on the palm is bad luck.’ Eric Hoffer, an American writer said, ‘A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.’ I wondered what a right time to die was? I feel I have an eye in my mind and I close it when I am with strangers.
Mallika is autistic and lives in a strangely whimsical yet ordered world of her own. When her mother breaks the news to her that her beloved elder brother Ananth is going to get married, Mallika’s fragile world collapses. How will she deal with a stranger in her home and life? Told in an inimitable style, From the Eye of My Mind is a charming tale of acceptance, love, and a beautiful mind.
55
‘Tried to picture myself in a shady second-rate college and realized that even thinking
about it was difficult.’
Arjun Singh is a typical South Delhi brat whose biggest worry is securing a much-coveted seat in one of the city’s top colleges. But his ambitious plans come to a screeching halt when he scores a paltry ‘55’ in English in the board exams. Unable to meet the cut-off, Arjun is forced to take admission in a neighbouring second-grade college. Between grappling with his identity as a Sikh and facing repeated misfortunes in love, Arjun’s only solace is his three best friends from school who have also ended up in the same dump. What will happen to his future now?
Witty, naughty, and plain irreverent, 55 is a delightful, mad caper about growing up and surviving three tumultuous years in the hallowed corridors of Delhi University.
Soulless Phantoms
This collection of twenty-five poems gives voice to one’s existentialist pondering, the innate desire of human beings to achieve, and the immense and bittersweet comfort of sepia-tinged memories.
Lose yourself in the quaint meanderings of Anam Shahab’s words—traverse and look at the vast landscape of the world through the eyes of a sensitive soul and an empathetic, ever-questioning mind.
The Blind Man’s Garden
‘Love is not consolation, it is light’
From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil comes a novel set in the months after 9/11, when Western armies invaded Afghanistan-a story of love, hope and grief, of uncorrupted faith and of what it means to be alive.
Jeo and his foster-brother Mikal leave their home in Pakistan to help care for wounded Afghans. Within hours of entering the wide-horizoned Afghan landscape, Mikal and Jeo are separated and, emerging from the carnage, Mikal begins his search for Jeo. But his deepest wish is to return home-to the young woman he loves and who loves him, Jeo’s wife
Because Shit Happened
On a fateful winter day, Amol Sabharwal, co-founder of one of the most ambitious start-up ventures in the country, yourquote.in, decides to quit. What makes Amol quit his own business venture just when it is on the brink of raising its first round of funding?
Harsh Snehanshu, bestselling author of Oops! I Fell in Love! gives us an insider’s peek into the big, bad entrepreneurial world of fame, betrayal, lust for power, greed, and unethical business practices. Based on the real-life story of the start-up that the author co-founded in 2010, Because Shit Happened will tell you what NOT to do in a start-up.
An American Brat
Bapsi Sidhwa’s brilliant fourth novel chronicles the adventures of a young Pakistani girl in America with an enormously satisfying story and characters… The extended family of Feroza Ginwalla, a lively and temperamental girl, agonizes over the decision to send her to America for a three-month holiday. This act of apparent audacity arises from concern over Feroza’s conservative attitudes, which stem from Pakistan’s rising tide of fundamentalism. Feroza’s chaperone in America, an uncle only six years her senior, is her guide, friend, and the bane of her existence. Her relationship and adventures shape her alternatively hilarious and terrifying perceptions of the US. Feroza’s family in Pakistan, meanwhile, is in delicious turmoil over the possibility that American ways will ruin her…
How to Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia
Cast in the mould of a self-help guide to getting rich, this is the extraordinary story of a young boy, born into a poor family. As the years pass, he moves to a slum in the city, gets a brief education, flirts with militancy, and then, hungry for advancement, sets up a bottled water business, the ultimate symbol of the modern South Asian city-a place where nothing works but everything can be had at a price. But as he leaves his past behind, one thing remains
constant and true-his love for the girl he met as a teenager.
How I Got Lucky
‘I was with Lucky… Lucky Star. He showed me what he was wearing to the Cannes Film Festival. He’s given me an Exclusive.’
Raman Malhotra is thirty five, uninitiated in the matters of love, and endlessly confused about his sexuality. A journalist with The Weekly, his search for front page scoops come to a screeching halt when he’s assigned the Bollywood beat. Throw into the mix the shenanigans of an overpowering lesbian photographer, a dirt-swapping PR queen, a webcam model doling out sexual favours, and a rising Bollywood star.
Raman’s blah existence is dramatically thrown off-kilter when he finds himself being pursued and courted by the bisexual king of Bollywood, Lucky Star. Puckered into a world of celebrity, malicious gossip, and meaningless shags—Raman wrestles with his sense of self, ideas of love, and the monstrous caricatures of entertainment.