Screenwriter and fame-child Shaheen Bhatt has been a powerhouse of quiet restraint-until recently. In a sweeping act of courage, she now invites you into her head.
Shaheen was diagnosed with depression at eighteen, after five years of already living with it. In this emotionally arresting memoir, she reveals both the daily experiences and big picture of one of the most debilitating and critically misinterpreted mental illnesses in the twenty-first century. Shaheen takes us through the personal pendulum of understanding and living with depression in her privileged circumstances. With honesty and a profound self-awareness, Shaheen lays claim to her sadness, while locating it in the universal fabric of the human condition.
In this multi-dimensional, philosophical tell-all, Shaheen acknowledges, accepts and overcomes the peculiarities of living with depression. To anyone with mental health disorders, I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier stretches out its hand to gently provide solace and solidarity
Catagory: Biographies, Diaries & True Accounts
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: Queen of Ice
Didda, princess of Lohara, is beautiful, intelligent–and lame.
Despised by her father and bullied by his heir, Didda’s childhood is miserable and her future, bleak.
When she is married off to the dissolute ruler of Kashmira, she must learn to hold her own in a court ridden with factions and conspiracies. But Didda is no ordinary queen. Ruthless and ambitious, she wants to rewrite history. Will she succeed?
Queen of Ice is a compulsive read that brings alive the turbulent history of tenth-century Kashmir with an exquisite balance of fact and fiction. This is award-winning author Devika Rangachari’s finest novel yet.
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: The Dhoni Touch
For over a decade, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has captivated the world of cricket and over a billion Indians with his incredible ingenuity as captain, wicketkeeper and batsman. Bharat Sundaresan tracks down the cricketer’s closest friends in Ranchi and artfully presents the different shades of Dhoni-the Ranchi boy, the fauji, the diplomat, Chennai’s beloved Thala, the wicketkeeping Pythagoras-and lays bare the man underneath. He discovers a certain je ne sais quoi about the man who has a magical ability to transform and elevate everything which comes into his orbit-the Dhoni Touch.
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: The Radical in Ambedkar
This landmark volume, edited and introduced by Anand Teltumbde and Suraj Yengde, establishes B.R. Ambedkar as the most powerful advocate of equality and fraternity in modern India. While the vibrant Dalit movement recognizes Ambedkar as an agent for social change, the intellectual class has celebrated him as the key architect of the Indian Constitution and the political establishment has sought to limit his concerns to the question of reservations. This remarkable volume seeks to unpack the radical in Ambedkar’s legacy by examining his life work from hitherto unexplored perspectives.
Although revered by millions today primarily as a Dalit icon, Ambedkar was a serious scholar of India’s history, society and foreign policy. He was also among the first dedicated human rights lawyers, as well as a journalist and a statesman. Critically evaluating his thought and work, the essays in this book-by Jean Drèze, Partha Chatterjee, Sukhadeo Thorat, Manu Bhagavan, Anupama Rao and other internationally renowned names-discuss Ambedkar’s theory on minority rights, the consequences of the mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism, Dalit oppression in the context of racism and anti-Semitism, and the value of his thought for Marxism and feminism, among other global concerns.
An extraordinary collection of immense breadth and scholarship that challenges the popular understanding of Ambedkar, The Radical in Ambedkar is essential reading for all those who wish to imagine a new future.
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: Three Thousand Stitches
So often, it’s the simplest acts of courage that touch the lives of others. Sudha Murty-through the exceptional work of the Infosys Foundation as well as through her own youth, family life and travels-encounters many such stories . . . and she tells them here in her characteristically clear-eyed, warm-hearted way. She talks candidly about the meaningful impact of her work in the devadasi community, her trials and tribulations as the only female student in her engineering college and the unexpected and inspiring consequences of her father’s kindness. From the quiet joy of discovering the reach of Indian cinema and the origins of Indian vegetables to the shallowness of judging others based on appearances, these are everyday struggles and victories, large and small.
Unmasking both the beauty and ugliness of human nature, each of the real-life stories in this collection is reflective of a life lived with grace.
Zikr
Internationally renowned, Muzaffar Ali has donned many hats in his lifetime. The scion of the princely house of Kotwara, the boy Muzaffar was shaped by the changing post-Partition India. Having studied science at Aligarh University, he started his career in an advertisement agency in Calcutta, worked with the nascent Air India and then ventured on a journey that produced cinematic masterpieces like Umrao Jaan. Along the way, his path collided with many-from Satyajit Ray to Faiz Ahmad Faiz-and he has cultivated many a passion, whether for cars or couture.
His autobiography is a peek into this wealth of experience-a close look at Ali, prince, poet, philosopher, film-maker, automobile aficionado and artist. Zikr is also a rich interior portrait of an artist, as Ali takes us behind the scenes of films like Anjuman and Gaman, speaking of the sensibilities that shaped them and the influences on his work. Above all, this is a book that resounds with a deep love for life.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration, seeking to venture off the beaten track of Bollywood or wishing to bite into a slice of erstwhile Awadhi culture, Zikr has something to offer all.
Lata
An ode to the majestic life of the late Lata Mangeshkar, Lata: A Life in Music celebrates art in its totality and tells the life story of India’s most loved vocal artists. The result of Yatindra Mishra’s decade-long dialogue with the great singer, it also explores the lesser-known aspects of the great artist, introducing the readers to Lata Mangeshkar as an intellectual and cultural exponent and providing a rare glimpse into the person behind the revered enigma.
At the confluence of cinema, music and literature, this is the most definitive biography of the voice of the nation that also documents sociocultural changes from the late British era through post-Independent India right up to the twenty-first century. This is the story of the various myths, mysteries, truths and contradictions which make a human an icon and also make an icon incredibly humane.
The Last Heroes
So who really spearheaded India’s Freedom Struggle? Millions of ordinary people-farmers, labourers, homemakers, forest produce gatherers, artisans and others-stood up to the British. People who never went on to be ministers, governors, presidents, or hold other high public office.
They had this in common: their opposition to Empire was uncompromising.
In The Last Heroes, these footsoldiers of Indian freedom tell us their stories. The men, women and children featured in this book are Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. They hail from different regions, speak different languages and include atheists and believers, Leftists, Gandhians and Ambedkarites.
The people featured pose the intriguing question: What is freedom? They saw that as going beyond Independence. And almost all of them continued their fight for freedoms long after 1947.
The post-1947 generations need their stories.
To learn what they understood. That freedom and independence are not the same thing. And to learn to make those come together.
Rani Durgawati
Gond Rani Veerangana Durgawati, queen of the tribal kingdom of Garha Mandla, ruled more than 450 years ago and died fighting for her dharma. A survivor who was not afraid to stand up for her rights, she was a warrior smart enough to use terrain to counter much larger manpower and artillery strength, a devoted mother and a model monarch who looked after her people till her last breath-the fact that she lived in blood-soaked medieval India, makes her story even more remarkable.
The feisty and formidable Rani Durgawati lives on in the folk tales and songs of her people. These songs and tales have now been used by Nandini Sengupta to create a meticulously researched and accessibly written biography of a forgotten female hero and one of India’s most underrated monarchs.
Tales of Sanawar
Tales of Sanawar, is a collection of anecdotal stories penned by some of the school’s most illustrious alumni and published by The Old Sanawarian Society (OSS®), its alumni association celebrating 175 years of their alma mater. The book contains schooldays memoirs of Old Sanawarians. Experiences of their childhood years on the Hilltop. Well-researched archival chronicles of the school take us back in time, from the days of the founding of the Lawrence Royal Military Asylum in 1847 to the independence of India and first-hand accounts of how Sanawar endured through that historic period of transition, including the great wars. Commentaries extracted from the school’s annual magazine provide a vivid description of life at Sanawar in the post-Independence years.