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Catagory: Non Fiction

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Right Between the Ears

Right Between the Ears reveals the secrets that allow brands to open up hidden domains in our minds through powerful psychological triggers. The power of cognitive brands is not accidental; it is architected by applying recent scientific advances in fields as disparate as psychology, behavioural economics, social anthropology and cognitive neuroscience. These consilient techniques now allow us to peer into the soul of a brand as never before.

Marketers have created truly phenomenal brands in the past. However, until now, our understanding of brain science was not quite enough to explain why some brand campaigns become so iconic while others fizzle. This book provides a new lens with which we can deconstruct those successes and failures. It takes the reader on a rollicking ride through examples and stories of brands as timeless as De Beers, Mastercard, Allstate and Guinness, as well as modern-day wonders like Madison Reed, Allbirds and Warby Parker.

The book is called Right between the Ears because that is where the brain is. Psychologists sometimes say that everything about sex happens not where you think but right between your ears. Everything about brands, too, happens there. This book reveals all you need to know to build your own epic brands.

Sarasvati’s Gift

Sarasvati, the feminine force worshipped as the goddess of learning, is a household name, yet we barely know much about the goddess. She is known as a lost river and seen as a singular goddess, never as part of a couple, such as Shiva-Parvati or Lakshmi-Narayan. In Sarasvati’s Gift, Kavita Kane brings to light Sarasvati’s story-the goddess of art, music and knowledge-told in the voices of nameless celestials, powerful gods and lesser mortals. The book explores her relationship with her Creator, Brahma, and their unusual marriage-a union of fiercely independent minds and the most non-conforming, unconventional of the Triumvirate couples. As these peripheral figures and silent catalysts take centre stage, we get a glimpse of an extraordinary woman and her remarkable story, obscured and buried under myths and legends.

Operation Khukri

Did you know that 233 soldiers of the Indian Army were cordoned off for almost three months without food in the jungles of Africa?

How did a UN peacekeeping mission turn into a war for dignity, a war for the Indian tricolour?

The year was 2000. Sierra Leone, in West Africa, had been ravaged by years of civil strife. With the intervention of the United Nations, two companies of the Indian Army were deployed in Kailahun as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

Soon, the peaceful mission turned into a war-like standoff between Major Punia’s company and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Kailahun, with the Indian peacekeepers cordoned off for seventy-five days without supplies. The only way home was by laying down their weapons.

Operation Khukri was one of Indian Army’s most successful international missions, and this book is a first-hand account by Major Rajpal Punia, who, after three months of impasse and failed diplomacy, orchestrated the operation, surviving the ambush of the RUF in a prolonged jungle warfare twice, and returning with all 233 soldiers standing tall.

#Tatastories

The Tatas have a legacy of nation-building over 150 years. Dancing across this long arc of time are thousands of beautiful, astonishing stories, many of which can inspire and provoke us, even move us to meaningful action in our own lives.

A diamond twice as large as the famous Kohinoor pledged to survive a financial crisis; a meeting with a ‘relatively unknown young monk’ who later went on to be known as Swami Vivekananda; the fascinating story of the first-ever Indian team at the Olympics; the making of India’s first commercial airline and first indigenous car; how ‘OK TATA’ made its way to the backs of millions of trucks on Indian highways; a famous race that was both lost and won; and
many more.

#TataStories is a collection of littleknown tales of individuals, events and places from the Tata Group that have shaped the India we live in today.

The Incomparable Festival (A masterpiece of Indo-Islamic literary culture)

An indispensable translation of Jan Sahib’s poetic ethnography of nineteenth-century performers-Pasha M. Khan, chair in Urdu Language and Culture, McGill University

This is a truly extraordinary work, an important contribution to the cultural history of the subcontinent-Muneeza Shamsie, writer and literary critic

The translation is experimental, challenging traditional expectations in its approach to rhyme and meter-Carla Petievich, South Asia Institute, The University of Texas at Austin

The Incomparable Festival (Musaddas Tahniyat-e-Jashn-e-Benazir) by Mir Yar Ali (whose pen name was Jan Sahib) is a little known but sumptuous masterpiece of Indo-Islamic literary culture, presented here for the first time in English translation. The long poem, written in rhyming sestet stanzas, is about the royal festival popularly called jashn-e-benazir(the incomparable festival), inaugurated in 1866 by the Nawab Kalb-e-Ali Khan (r. 1865-87) with the aim of promoting art, culture and trade in his kingdom at Rampur in northern India. The task of commemorating the sights and wonders of the festival was given to the hugely popular writer of rekhti verse, the tart and playful sub-genre of the ghazal, reflecting popular women’s speech, of which Jan Sahib is one of the last practitioners.

Structured as an ode to the nawab, the poem is a world-album depicting various classes on the cusp of social upheaval. They include the elite, distinguished artists and commoners, brought together at the festivities, blurring the distinction between poetry, history and biography, and between poetic convention and social description. The book is a veritable archive of the legendary khayal singers, percussionists, and instrumentalists, courtesans, boy-dancers, poets, storytellers (dastango) and reciters of elegies (marsiyago). But, above all, the poem gives voice to the ‘lowest’ denizens of the marketplace by bringing to light their culinary tastes, artisanal products, religious rituals and beliefs, and savoury idioms, thereby focusing on identities of caste and gender in early modern society.

This Penguin Classics edition will be of interest not just to the Urdu and Hindi literary historian, but to specialists and readers interested in the histories of music, dance, and the performative arts, as well as scholars of gender and sexuality in South Asia. Lovers of Urdu poetry will find in it a forgotten masterpiece.

Annapurna Devi

Legendary musician Annapurna Devi’s life has been shrouded in mystery. Daughter of the unparalleled Allauddin Khan of Maitra and the first wife of Pandit Ravi Shankar, she conquered the summit of Indian classical music, only to later renounce public life to spend her entire life as a recluse in the confinement of her house. Until the age of sixteen, Annapurna Devi was confined to her family home at Maihar, where her father was a court musician and guru to the maharaja. During this period, she devoted herself exclusively to the deepest study and practice of Indian classical music under the strict tutelage of her father. After her estrangement from her husband Pandit Ravi Shankar, Annapurna Devi went ever deeper into self-imposed seclusion.
The only people whom she met and communicated with were her disciples who used to visit her for music lessons, which included some of the greatest musicians our era has seen, including Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Bahadur Khan, Aashish Khan, Dhyanesh Khan, Nityanand Haldipur and Basant Kabra, to name a few. Full of anecdotes and untold stories, this is her life story as told by her to her disciples over a period of time, giving valuable insights into their Guru Ma’s personality, music and teachings.

What’s Your Story?

Are you trying to build your profile as a leader?

Are you using social media to your advantage?

Is your communication jargon-free?

When do you choose to produce a video or a podcast?

Does your message come through loud and clear?

What’s the future of storytelling, and are you prepared for it?

In a world where people send 500 million tweets a day and upload hundreds of hours of video every minute, how do you get your message across? The secret is to become a good storyteller. With easy-to-follow, effective tools and tips, this book will help you cut through the clutter and plan your communication goals, channels and delivery. Everyone loves a good story, but only a few can tell it well.

Be authentic, be authoritative and be heard!

The Long Game

‘Essential reading for all those interested in how India will deal with its greatest strategic challenge, an increasingly powerful China‘-SHIVSHANKAR MENON

‘Vijay Gokhale strips away the illusion that China ever shared convergent interests with India in Asia and globally. A disconcerting read, but indispensable.’-ASHLEY J. TELLIS

India’s relations with the People’s Republic of China have captured the popular imagination ever since the 1950s but have rarely merited a detailed understanding of the issues. Individual episodes tend to arouse lively debate, which often dissipates without a deeper exploration of the factors that shaped the outcomes. This book explores the dynamics of negotiation between the two countries, from the early years after Independence until the current times, through the prism of six historical and recent events in the India-China relationship. The purpose is to identify the strategy, tactics and tools that China employs in its diplomatic negotiations with India, and the learnings for India from its past dealings with China that may prove helpful in future negotiations with the country.

Skill It, Kill It

Ever wondered why CEOs, leaders and recruiters talk endlessly about soft skills? Job interviews, promotions, appraisals, teamwork, managing workplace challenges, communication skills and a lot more-soft skills give you a sizeable professional edge to ace all of these.

In this book, Ronnie Screwvala shares personal stories and observations from his many failures and few successes to give you an insider’s view of the ‘invisible’ skills, which can cut years off your learning curve. Practical, actionable and peppered with advice from successful leaders, Skill It, Kill It will ensure you’re future-proof in these ever-changing times and ready to stand out among your peers.

If you are ready to
RISE
COMMIT
LISTEN
SACRIFICE
and really want it BADLY
Then your time is NOW

Welcome to #LifeLongLearning

An essential career guide on exceling in the corporate world!

Diamonds in the Dust

The essential manual on generating consistent returns from the Indian stock market by Saurabh Mukherjea, award-winning author of Coffee Can Investing and The Unusual Billionaires.

Over the last few years, there has been a growing realization among Indians that their life’s savings, the bulk of which are parked in physical assets like real estate and gold, are unlikely to help them generate sufficient returns to fund their financial goals, including retirement. At the same time, many have lost their hard-earned money trying to invest in financial assets, including debt and equities. Such losses have occurred due to many reasons, such as corporate frauds, weak business models and misallocation of capital by the companies in whose shares unsuspecting investors parked their savings. What options do Indian savers then have to invest in, and build their wealth?

Diamonds in the Dust offers Indian savers a simple, yet highly effective, investment technique to identify clean, well-managed Indian companies that have consistently generated outsized returns for investors. Based on in-depth research conducted by the award-winning team at Marcellus Investment Managers, it uses case studies and charts to help readers learn the art and science of investing in the US$3 trillion Indian stock market.

The book also debunks many notions of investing that have emerged from the misguided application of Western investment theories in the Indian context.

Vital and indispensable, this book will serve as the ultimate manual on investing and provide practical counsel to readers to achieve their financial goals of extraordinary wealth creation.

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