In the middle of one of the worst storms to hit the city, a mysterious letter arrives for Prakash Ray, an out-of-luck journalist, inviting him to a quaint, suburban bungalow, to celebrate the 60th birthday of an uncle he has never heard of… As Prakash reaches the venue, he is introduced to a motley group of people, all gathered there for the old man’s big day: his son, his reticent brother, a dignified middle-aged lady who once owned the bungalow, a listless lawyer who manages his legal affairs, a mild-mannered young man who works as his secretary, his beautiful, young biographer, and his mysterious friend, who has never lost a game of chess to him. As the storm lashes on through the night, one of the people in the bungalow is murdered! In a game of cat and mouse that follows, Prakash soon finds out that under the surface of apparent warmth and friendliness, nothing is as it seems and that the bungalow holds one shocking secret after another! In a bid to save his own life, Prakash hunts for the truth, which lies in a mysterious penumbra of shadows and lights, covered in a sheath of deceit and guile, only to realize that the worst is yet to come!
Catagory: Fiction
Fiction main category
Here Falls the Shadow
Think of your sins. Prepare to die.
On the edge of the forests of Deoghar, in the small, sleepy town of Nimdeora, novelist Sangram Talukdar’s peaceful life is unexpectedly shattered when he receives an anonymous threat.At first, he dismisses it as a cruel joke, but when two of the family’s beloved dogs, guardians of the estate, are found killed with a clean, swift arrow to each of their throats, Talukdar calls in the astute detective Janardan Maity to investigate. To uncover the dark secrets of this quiet town, Maity has to dig deep into the past – into the Talukdar family’s bloody history, and a curse that has haunted the family for generations. But he must act quickly, because someone, or something, is lurking in the shadows of the forest, watching, waiting to claim their prey…
Mai
Nestled within the walls of a home in a north Indian town, a vibrant microcosm thrives—a tapestry intricately woven by a joint family, their attendants and a continuous flow of visitors. Across three generations, women and men employ varied strategies of adaptation and achievement, choosing either to conform or to challenge the constraints of patriarchy.
At the epicentre of this intricate web stands Mai, the ostensibly gentle mother, orchestrating the complex patterns of relationships and actions, carving out a life not just for herself but for those around her. Despite her modern children’s attempts to liberate her from perceived confinement, the evolving story challenges simplistic notions of bondage and freedom. The novel masterfully weaves profound tales of love and loss, with Mai serving as its central and compelling figure.
Mai, Geetanjali Shree’s debut work, is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002. In Nita Kumar’s translation, the narrative comes alive, inviting readers into this captivating exploration of family, relationships and the intricacies of freedom.
A Person Is a Prayer
Bedi and Sushma’s marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope, and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children, Selena, Tara and Rohan, are grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching.
Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father’s ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a happy life, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.
A Person Is a Prayer plumbs the depths of the spaces between family members and the silence that rushes in like a flood when communication deteriorates. It is about how short a life is and how the choices we make can ripple down generations.
Blasphear
When Sub-inspector Waqas Mahmood is assigned the case of a suicide of a seventeen-year-old boy, he is tempted to do the bare minimum and close it. Waqas has been disenchanted with the police force and wants to quit anyway. And the ominous presence of a religious outfit around the boy’s house is another reason to stay away. It’s also just too hot in Shantinagar, a dusty town in Punjab in Pakistan.
But Waqas realizes there’s more to the case when the boy’s friend reaches out claiming that it was not a suicide. In fact, the case might be linked to another terrifying case in Shantinagar when a Hindu art teacher was lynched on the accusation of blasphemy against Islam.
Waqas is intrigued; a horror story from his childhood returns to haunt him. From witnesses’ statements, he pieces together accounts of friendships that transcended religions before they were ruined by betrayal, conspiracy and religious fanaticism. Will Waqas succumb to the terror of religious bigots, or will he uphold justice in a society that badly needs it?
Gitanjali/गीतांजलि
गीतांजलि रवीन्द्रनाथ टैगोर द्वारा मूलतः बांग्ला में रचित गीतों (गेयात्मक कविताओं) का संग्रह है। ‘गीतांजलि’ शब्द ‘गीत’ और ‘अञ्जलि’ को मिलाकर बना है जिसका अर्थ है—गीतों का उपहार (भेंट)। वैसे रवीन्द्रनाथ सूफी रहस्यवाद और वैष्णव काव्य से प्रभावित थे। फिर भी संवेदना चित्रण में वे इन कवियों को अनुकृति नहीं लगते। जैसे मनुष्य के प्रति प्रेम अनजाने ही परमात्मा के प्रति प्रेम में परिवर्तित हो जाता है। वे नहीं मानते कि भगवान किसी आदम बीज की तरह है। उनके लिए प्रेम है प्रारंभ और परमात्मा है अंत! सिर्फ इतना कहना नाकाफी है कि >i>गीतांजलि के स्वर में सिर्फ रहस्यवाद है। इसमें मध्ययुगीन कवियों का निपटारा भी है। धारदार तरीके से उनके मूल्यबोधों के ख़िलाफ। हालाँकि पूरी गीतांजलि का स्वर यह नहीं है। उसमें समर्पण की भावना प्रमुख विषय वस्तु है। यह रवीन्द्रनाथ का संपूर्ण जिज्ञासा से उपजी रहस्योन्मुख कृति है।
Uff Mannoo!/उफ़्फ़ मन्नू!
आधी-अधूरी ख़्वाहिशों की दास्तान है ज़िंदगी, मुकम्मल जहान तो बस कहानियों में हासिल है . . .
ऐसी ही एक अधूरी दास्तान बंद लबों में पिरोए फिरती है माहिरा और मनन की ज़िंदगी, जिसमें मोती हैं—
मोहब्बत के इज़हार के, इकरार के, तकरार के . . . आख़िर यह दास्तान आधी-अधूरी क्यों रह गई?
देर रात एक टॉल, हैंडसम छवि बॉनफायर के दूसरी तरफ से नज़र आई, और सोढ़ी के मुँह से निकल गया, ‘ओ, चौरसिया!’
आख़िरकार माहिरा का दो दशकों से भी लंबा बेपनाह इंतज़ार ख़त्म हुआ . . . और फिर शुरू हुआ सवालों-जवाबों का, शिकवे-गिलों का सिलसिला।
वैसे मनन को इल्म था कि उसने जो किया वह क़ाबिल-ए-माफ़ी नहीं फिर भी जवाब तो उसे देना ही था, आख़िर माहिरा इसकी हकदार थी। लेकिन क्या था जवाब और क्या रहा उनका भविष्य? जानने के लिए पढ़ें, अमिता ठाकुर की कलम से निकला हिंदी पाठकों के लिए उनका पहला उपन्यास जो जज़्बातों के चक्रव्यूह में फंसाता है, निकालता है और पाठक को आख़िरी शब्द तक बांधे भी रखता है।
Death in the Air
Ro Krishna is the American son of Indian parents, educated at the finest institutions, equally at home in London’s poshest clubs and on the squash court, but unmoored after he is dramatically forced to leave a high-profile job under mysterious circumstances. He decides it’s time to check in for some much-needed R&R at Samsara, a world-class spa for the global cosmopolitan elite nestled in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. A person could be spiritually reborn in a place like this. Even a very rich person.
But a person—or several—could also die there. Samsara is the Sanskrit word for the karmic cycle of death and rebirth, after all. And as it turns out, the colorful cast of characters Ro meets—including a misanthropic politician; an American movie star preparing for his Bollywood crossover debut; a beautiful heiress to a family fortune that barely survived Partition; and a bumbling white yogi inexplicably there to teach meditation—
harbors a murderer among them. Maybe more than one.
As the death toll rises, Ro, a lawyer by training and a sleuth by circumstance, becomes embroiled in a vicious world under a gilded surface, where nothing is quite what it seems . . . including Ro himself. Death in the Air is a brilliant, teasing mystery from a remarkable new talent.
Darako
Brave and funny, set in colonial India, Darako features a paanwallah and his secrets, a spitting competition that grows to be a massive affair attracting talents from everywhere, an Afghan rebel who is a star spitter and a mystic, gun-running during the freedom struggle, a daylight murder and a tangy romance amidst the utter chaos. In this world, up is down, and down is up. With laugh-out-loud moments and a clever play with language, song and history, Darako uses satire to comment on religion, identity and freedom.
Warmth
Dear reader,
If you have a heart, you will fall in love. And chances are, someone will end up breaking your heart. I wrote this book after someone broke mine.
What do you do when the only person you’ve ever loved with your whole heart decides to leave your life? You keep trying to run away from the hurt, but to no avail. This book is a product of all the running I did from heartbreak.
I feel everything too deeply, and when my heart broke, I collected all the broken pieces, and they fueled my art. This book is everything I wrote after someone I loved left me.
There’s too much heartbreak in these pages, but also too much hope and, more than anything, a promise that life can’t always hurt you.
I hope healing finds its way to you soon.
Love,
Rithvik