Leela is a bar dancer in Mumbai. She is young, beautiful, determined and hedonistic. And she is also self destructive, cynical and full of despair. When the dance bars in the city are banned, the young woman and her friends find their worlds slowly giving way. Journalist Sonia Faleiro followed Leela before and after the ban, meeting her friends, her lovers, and her family. In this extraordinary work of reportage, she draws an unforgettable portrait of the bar dancer and her subterranean night-time world.
Catagory: Society & Social Sciences
Indians
‘Deepens our sense of the wonder that was India’ ~ Pankaj Mishra
‘A gem of a book that is a joy to read . . . You can almost touch and feel the centuries and millennia as they pass by’ ~ Tony Joseph
‘Arora explores how Indians lived, ate, loved, built, fought and made sense of the material, rational and spiritual world down the ages . . . [A] mega-ambitious project’ ~ The Hindu
‘A wonderfully evocative book. Arora invites the reader to reflect on the past, without overwhelming her with dry historical facts but luring her in with vivid human stories’ ~ Prof. Mohan Rao
A BRILLIANT, ORIGINAL BOOK THAT REVEALS INDIA’S RICH AND DIVERSE HISTORIES
What do we really know about the Aryan migration theory and why is that debate so hot?
Why did the people of Khajuraho carve erotic scenes on their temple walls?
What did the monks at Nalanda eat for dinner?
Did our ideals of beauty ever prefer dark skin?
Indian civilization is an idea, a reality, an enigma. In this riveting book, Namit Arora takes us on an unforgettable journey through 5000 years of history, reimagining in rich detail the social and cultural moorings of Indians through the ages. Drawing on credible sources, he discovers what inspired and shaped them: their political upheavals and rivalries, customs and vocations, and a variety of unusual festivals. Arora makes a stop at six iconic places — the Harappan city of Dholavira, the Ikshvaku capital at Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist centre of learning at Nalanda, enigmatic Khajuraho, Vijayanagar at Hampi, and historic Varanasi — enlivening the narrative with vivid descriptions, local stories and evocative photographs. Punctuating this are chronicles of famous travellers who visited India — including Megasthenes, Xuanzang, Alberuni and Marco Polo — whose dramatic and idiosyncratic tales conceal surprising insights about our land.
In lucid, elegant prose, Arora explores the exciting churn of ideas, beliefs and values of our ancestors through millennia — some continue to shape modern India, while others have been lost forever. An original, deeply engaging and extensively researched work, Indians illuminates a range of histories coursing through our veins.
Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in Agra in the closing years of the eighteenth century. A precocious child, he began composing verses at an early age and gained recognition while he was still very young. He wrote in both Urdu and Persian and was also a great prose stylist. He was a careful, even strict, editor of his work who took to publishing long before his peers. His predilection for writing difficult, obscure poetry peppered with complex metaphors produced a unique commentarial tradition that did not extend beyond his work. Commentaries on his current Urdu divan have produced a field of critical writing that eventually lead to the crafting of a critical lens with which to view the classical ghazal.
The nineteenth century was the height of European colonialism. British colonialism in India produced definitive changes in the ways literature was produced, circulated and consumed. Ghalib responded to the cultural challenge with a far-sightedness that was commendable. His imagination sought engagement with a wider community of readers. His deliberate switch to composing in Persian shows that he wanted his works to reach beyond political boundaries and linguistic barriers.
Ghalib’s poetic trajectory begins from Urdu, then moves to composing almost entirely in Persian and finally swings back to Urdu. It is nearly as complex as his poetry. However, his poetic output in Persian is far more than what he wrote in Urdu. More important is that he gave precedence to Persian over Urdu. Ghalib’s voice presents us with a double bind, a linguistic paradox. Exploring his life, works and philosophy, this authoritative critical biography of Ghalib opens a window to many shades of India and the subcontinent’s cultural and literary tradition.
I Am No Messiah
Sometimes, a little nudge from the universe pushes one to find his raison d’etre in life. If actor Sonu Sood had given in to the celebrity syndrome of sitting in his ivory tower and expressing his generosity by remote control, he would have never come face to face with the trauma of India’s migrant labourers or understood that a food packet was a woefully inadequate substitute for a ride back home.
During the nationwide lockdown, imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a wave of poverty-stricken migrants set out on foot to make their arduous journey back home, the value of seva, service to mankind, instilled in him by his parents, spurred Sonu Sood into action. From taking to the streets and reaching out to the stranded, to setting up a dedicated team and making arrangements for national and international transport, Sonu managed to help thousands of helpless and needy workers. Thus, began his ‘Ghar Bhejo’ programme, carried out like a humanitarian mission. Chartered flights, buses and trains were sanitized and paid for. Distress calls from all over the world were answered. Soon, the movement snowballed into a campaign for providing jobs, medical facilities and educational aid to workers. The silver-screen villain transitioned into a real-life superhero.
In his memoir, I Am No Messiah, Sonu Sood combines the extraordinary experiences of his journey from Moga to Mumbai with the writing skills of veteran journalist and author Meena K. Iyer. Honest, inspirational and heart-warming, this is the story of Sonu Sood and of the people whose lives he continues to transform.
Bike Ambulance Dada
Twenty-five years ago, Karimul Hak lost his mother because he could not afford an ambulance and there was no other way to take her to a hospital. However, when his co-worker fell sick, Karimul resolved to ensure that history did not repeat itself.
Bike Ambulance Dada, the authorized biography of Padma Shri awardee Karimul Hak, is the most inspiring and heart-warming story you will read this year. It documents the extraordinary journey of a tea garden worker who saved thousands of lives by starting a free bike-ambulance service from his village to the nearest hospital in an attempt to fill the gap the insufficient rural healthcare created.
This book, about the extraordinary life of a man who has devoted his entire life to helping those around him and putting others before himself, is a must-read today, serving as an inspiration for us to do and be better.
The Good Girls
One night in the summer of 2014, two teenagers disappeared from their home in the village of Katra Sadatganj in Uttar Pradesh. The next morning, India woke up to the devastating image of their dead bodies hanging from a tree in a mango orchard.
The girls’ names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic. Who were they and what had happened to them? In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence.
Slipping deftly behind political manoeuvring, caste systems and codes of honour in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli’s short lives and tragic deaths, and dares to ask: What is the human cost of shame?
Pakistan’s Terror Conundrum
Pakistan was born amid communal violence and a collective consciousness of danger. Right from the outset, democracy was up for debate between the politicians nurtured by the British Raj and an orthodox clergy that advocated a utopia in which Islam was to be the ideological guide. Today, the threat of religion as an extra-legal force is causing many Pakistanis to think if the state can move forward into the future with Islam as its credo.
In this carefully curated collection of his writings in several publications, senior journalist Khaled Ahmed examines Pakistan’s policies regarding terrorism against the backdrop of increasing pressure from international organizations. Despite joining the US in its war against terror after 9/11, the country has been perceived as a safe haven and breeding ground for terrorists. Ahmed looks at the origins and activities of the various terrorist organizations, the role of the state and the ideology of its founding figures, some of whom seem to have been forgotten.
The Mahabharata (Box Set)
The greatest Indian story ever told of a war between two factions of a family, The Mahabharata has continued to sway the imagination of its readers over the past centuries.
While the dispute over land and kingdom between the warring cousins-the Pandavas and the Kauravas-forms the chief narrative, the primary concern of The Mahabharata is about the conflict of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in The Mahabharata, the reason the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination.
The complete and unabridged Sanskrit classic, now masterfully and accessibly rendered for contemporary readers by Bibek Debroy.
Superstar India
Explore the Shobhaa De minsite here! ‘This is a story about India. My India. It is a very personal story. You see, I’m exactly as old as India is.’ It all began when, viewing the breathless preparations for independent India’s 60th birthday celebrations–and poised then on her own sixth decade—Shobhaa Dé was struck by the thought: ‘Surely my life has taken the same trajectory as the country’s?’ In an intimate confession to her readers, she answers that question, and many more: Does India really deserve to congratulate itself? Has it lived up to the early promises it made to its people? Does the author believe in India herself? Surveying the many images of the country, Dé points out that for every truism about India the opposite is also true: India as the land of the meek; India as inheritor of the earth; India gherao-ed by distinctly unfriendly neighbours; Indians fleeing to jobs in the West and then racing right back to a better life; Indians who ape their erstwhile colonizers and yet cling irrationally to tradition. In a departure from anything else she has written, Shobhaa Dé lasers in on Indian people and their place in the larger human society, pointing out her country’s historical failings and equally historical glories. Admitting to our knee-jerk reactions to much of what is happening at home and in the world, Dé reasons, nevertheless, that the nation has earned superstar status, and with humorous argumentativeness, she convinces the reader that India is not about to lose its glow.
Caste
Caste, and caste-based discrimination, are not just Indian issues. They are experienced throughout the world, from Britain to Bahrain, Canada to South Africa. This is a global phenomenon, demanding global solutions.
Leading scholar Suraj Milind Yengde shines a light on the Dalit experience internationally, from indentured labourers in the nineteenth-century Caribbean to present-day migrant workers in the Middle East. Combining history, ethnography and archival research, he offers a compelling, comparative approach to caste and race from ancient times to today. What have been the impacts of colonialism, religion and nationalism on caste-based hierarchies worldwide? What can we learn from caste-related movements in India and internationally? Why hasn’t the South Asian diaspora embraced the anti-caste struggles of the homeland? And what are the limits of Dalit–Black solidarity?
Exploring the global footprint of the anti-caste struggle—from its links with Black Lives Matter to the work of international Ambedkarite organisations—this is a powerful analysis of world politics from the perspective of one of the most oppressed communities on Earth. Asking probing questions about the nature of inequality, Yengde issues an energetic call for a cosmopolitan Dalit universalism, as a vital part of today’s fight for social justice and equality.