A story of how money corrupts the way people look at one another and how it can almost tear a family apart Vinuta marries Girish, a bank clerk, and starts living with his family in Bangalore. She adjusts to her new family well, looking after her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law Gouramma, not taking to heart her mother-in-law’s constant picking. But when Girish’s elder brother Chandru, who is in the US, decides to get married, Vinuta has to listen to the constant comparisons made between her and Chandru’s wife, the ‘Dollar Bahu’, whose husband earns the valuable dollars that has brought the family its recent affluence. Vinuta slowly loses her peace of mind and health. Then Gouramma decides to visit her US-based son and daughter-in-law. Once there, she sees how liberating life can be, away from the strict norms that govern Indian middle-class life. But she also begins to understand that mere dollars cannot buy the love and respect that she gets as her due back in India. Does Gouramma forge a new relationship with Vinuta and can Vinuta forgive and forget the past?
Catagory: Fiction
Fiction main category
Gently Falls The Bakula
What is more important: a successful career or a happy marriage?
In the small town of Hubli, Shrikant discovers that he is attracted to his plain-looking but charming neighbour Shrimati, who always does better than him in the school exams. Shrimati too falls in love with the amiable and handsome Shrikant and the two get married. Shrikant joins an IT company and starts rapidly climbing the corporate ladder. He works relentlessly and reaches the pinnacle of his industry, while Shrimati abandons her academic aspirations and becomes his uncomplaining shasow, silently fulfilling her duties as a corporate leader’s wife. But one day, while talking to an old professor, she starts examining what she has done with her life and realizes it is dismally empty…
Gently Falls the Bakula is the story of a marriage that loses its way as ambition and self-interest take their toll. Written nearly three decades ago, Sudha Murty’s first novel remains startlingly relevant in its scrutiny of modern values and work ethics.
The Mother I Never Knew
What secrets lurk in a family’s past—and how important are they in the here and now?
Sudha Murty’s new book comprises two novellas that explore two quests by two different men—both for mothers they never knew they had.
Venkatesh, a bank manager, stumbles upon his lookalike one fine day. When he probes further, he discovers his father’s hidden past, which includes an abandoned wife and child. Ventakesh is determined to make amends to his impoverished stepmother—but how can he repay his father’s debt?
Mukesh, a young man, is shocked to realize after his father’s death that he was actually adopted. He sets out to find his biological mother, but the deeper he delves, the more confused he is about where his loyalties should lie: with the mother who gave birth to him, or with the mother who brought him up.
The Mother I Never Knew is a poignant, dramatic book that reaches deep into the human heart to reveal what we really feel about those closest to us.
House Of Cards
House of Cards is the story of Mridula, a bright young woman with enormous enthusiasm for life who hails from a Karnataka village. A chance meeting with Sanjay, a talented but impoverished doctor, leads to love and the couple marry and settle in Bangalore. The more Mridula sees of the world, the more she realizes how selfish and materialistic people can be, but she does not take the ups and downs of life to heart and lives each day with positive energy. Trouble brews when Sanjay quits his government job and starts an immensely successful private practice. With affluence comes the neverending ambition for more and the inevitable slide into corrupt practices. For a long time, Mridula has no idea that Sanjay has sold his soul. When the truth hits her, she has no recourse but to walk out on him, but can she really find a space of her own? This intricately woven novel explores human relationships in telling detail and holds up a mirror to our society with candour and with conviction.
Sita
It is significant that the only character in Hindu mythology, a king at that, to be given the title of ekam-patni-vrata, devoted to a single wife, is associated with the most unjust act of abandoning her in the forest to protect family reputation. This seems a deliberate souring of the narrative, made even more complex by Ram’s refusal to remarry despite the pressure on royalty to produce an heir. The intention seems to be to provoke thought on notions of fidelity, property and self-image. And so mythologist and illustrator Devdutt Pattanaik narrates the Ramayan, drawing attention to the many oral, visual and written retellings composed in different times by different poets, each one trying to solve the puzzle in their own unique way. This book approaches Ram by speculating on Sita-her childhood with her father, Janak, who hosted sages mentioned in the Upanishads; her stay in the forest with her husband who had to be a celibate ascetic while she was in the prime of her youth; her interactions with the women of Lanka, recipes she exchanged, emotions they shared; her connection with the earth, her mother; her role as the Goddess, the untamed Kali as well as the demure Gauri, in transforming the stoic prince of Ayodhya into God.
House of Stars
Kabir follows the most beautiful girl he has ever seen into a mall. But there are gunshots and screams as terrorists storm inside after fleeing an operation gone wrong. Kabir and Diya find themselves trapped, along with other hostages. The terrorists make their demands and announce that until they are met, one person will die every hour. The situation begins to spiral out of control.
Held hostage by fate, looking death in the face, it could be Kabir and Diya’s last chance at love. But, as they watch time run out, it turns out both of them are hiding secrets. Secrets that make their love even more impossible.
The Inheritors
Why did Harsh Mariwala leave his family business?
Why did the Burman family quit the day-to-day operations of Dabur?
How did the Dhingras turn a collapsing business into India’s second-largest paint company?
The Inheritors offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in Marico, Dabur, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Antara, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Luxor and Motilal Oswal. The book focuses on culture, family politics, ego battles, business rivalries and a lot more. And then, of course, there are the inheritors themselves-some take the businesses to even greater heights while others lead them to doom.
Mahadev
A little girl asks who Shiva is and it is the beginning of a family journey through stories and incidents across the expanse of Shivbhumi-all the way from the mystical Mount Kailash to the fabled Ocean of Milk and the netherworld.
Story after story from across India takes us closer to this elusive but much-loved god of gods, the Mahadev-his avatars and his lilas; his drinking the Kalakuta poison to save the world and his grief at the passing of Sati; his restoration as a householder and his eternal identity as the Mahayogi; his temples and their history; and his quirky, tender and wholly unpredictable involvement with the mortals who love him.
Writing in the Harikatha style of traditional storytelling, Renuka Narayanan builds a unique narrative to draw the reader into the loving, giving world of Mahadev.
Calling Sehmat
The year is 1971
Tension is brewing between India and Pakistan
One secret could change the course of history . . .
It’s now up to her
When a young college-going Kashmiri girl, Sehmat, gets to know her dying father’s last wish, she can do little but surrender to his passion and patriotism and follow the path he has so painstakingly laid out. It is the beginning of her transformation from an ordinary girl into a deadly spy.
She’s then married off to the son of a well-connected Pakistani general, and her mission is to regularly pass information to the Indian intelligence. Something she does with extreme courage and bravado, till she stumbles on information that could destroy the naval might of her beloved country.
Inspired from real events, Calling Sehmat is an espionage thriller that brings to life the story of this unsung heroine of war.
Beast
An urban adventure thriller inspired by the legend of the Narasimha Avatar and explained through Genetics.
It was always the same dream, a dream that began with darkness and blood.
When Assistant Commissioner of Police Aditi Kashyap is called upon to solve a gruesome triple homicide in a Mumbai suburb, she is dragged into the terrifying world of the Saimhas — werelions — who have lived alongside humans, hiding amongst them, since ancient times.
Faced with the unbelievable, Aditi has no choice but to join hands with Prithvi, an Enforcer called in to hunt down this seemingly otherworldly murderer.
But can Prithvi overcome the nightmarish burdens of his dark and violent past to unravel the mystery hidden deep within this secret world of werelions? Can he be trusted to save lives, or will he choose to serve a different, more powerful, master?
As a greater conspiracy unfolds and the very survival of humankind is placed under threat, Aditi and Prithvi must race through the dark underbelly of Mumbai — from quiet suburbs to gritty brothels, from forgotten colonial tunnels to the lights and glamour of the inner city — in search of a dangerous truth.
In search of a monster.