A pioneering book, Unfiltered: The CEO and the Coach, for the first time, opens the doors that normally shield the confidential world of coaching conversations. The book, through its candour, helps readers fully grasp the life-changing impact that coaching can have. Conceived as a leadership development book, the authors share the narratives (both individual and mutual) of their partnership over the course of five years. The resultant narrative provides not just unique insights that executives and entrepreneurs will find useful for their own development but also deep insights into how, by understanding ourselves, we move towards mastery over the world at large.
Catagory: Non Fiction
non fiction main category
The Penguin India 2022 Booker Prize Winners
TOMB OF SAND
In northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband, and then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a transgender person – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.
To her family’s consternation, Ma insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA
A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Karunatilaka is back with a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths.
Customer in the Boardroom
Is the customer in your boardroom?
The business strategies of most companies in India are marked by the supply-sided, tunnel vision of the market and obsessively competitor-centred approaches. Customer in the Boardroom highlights the need for companies to embed customer centricity into the heart of their business strategy development process, if they are to continue to grow profitably and secure their future.
Rama Bijapurkar presents a compelling treatise on how to develop business strategy around the world of customers rather than the world of competitors. She draws a sharp distinction between the ‘market = industry size’ and the ‘market = customers with needs’ bases for developing business strategy.
Replete with anecdotes, examples and cases from India Inc, the book draws on the author’s vast experience in consulting and teaching and places equal emphasis on both the theory and the practice of bringing the customer into the boardroom.
The Belt and Road Initiative & Global 2030 Sustainability
This book discusses the progress of the BRI as it enters its tenth year after being launched in 2013 and becoming by far the biggest bilateral development assistance program in the world. The analysis offered herein is based on eleven detailed ‘inside-out’ country studies by independent experts and the studies presented here explain in an accessible manner how the pace and direction of the BRI has been impacted by the pandemic, the debt distress faced by many countries and the policies adopted by the Chinese authorities to navigate these new challenges.
In Love, At Ease
In Love, At Ease is a heartfelt, intimate reflection on the life of Pramukh Swami Maharaj who personified the eternal spiritual values of selfless love and service, humility, inclusiveness and stability. The book presents a roadmap to inner happiness and success based on the interactions of a spiritual master who guided people from different faiths and backgrounds through the journey of life
The Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader
A single-volume guide to the writing and thoughts of one of the greatest personalities of modern India
A multifaceted genius, Sri Aurobindo was a political revolutionary, social critic, poet and above all, a great yogi and spiritual teacher. He was not only one of our foremost interpreters of the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, but also developed an original philosophy, which, though based on the ancient wisdom of India, has a modern, evolutionary dimension to it-the human being, according to him, is not the end of the evolutionary process; our destiny is to grow to a higher state of consciousness which will fundamentally alter life as we know it.
As a writer, Sri Aurobindo’s range was staggering-there is hardly a field of human endeavour that escaped his notice. This collection offers a sampling of his writings with selections from most of his major works and areas of interest. It begins with the early, often-ignored essays written during the struggle for Independence and traces the development of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical and religious thought, culminating in the system of Integral Yoga. Also included are some of his poems, letters and aphorisms. Together, they provide an ideal introduction to the complex and brilliant mind of a remarkable yogi and seer-poet.
If I’m Honest
Sidhartha Mallya has had a unique life to say the least. Born into one of India’s most prominent business families, he has had-from an outside perspective-what many would consider a blessed life. Appearances can often be deceiving, though, and at times what was going on inside was a very different story. In 2016, he went through depression. Something that came as a bit of a surprise to him, given that he seemingly had the world at his feet: he was young, had just graduated from a prestigious drama school and had upcoming film projects. However, despite all the wonderful opportunities that awaited him, he felt desperately unhappy, constantly low and like his insides were being crushed by a vice. That was when Sidhartha realized that something was not right and he sought professional help. Thus began the journey to understanding his current mental state as well as an exploration of the other mental issues he has suffered throughout his life and where they might have stemmed from. Sidhartha also writes about what helped him face and overcome his challenges.
Dattapaharam
‘I could hear wild animals, as hungry as I was, growling down below, having caught my human smell. They attempted to scale the rocks. If there was one among them that could climb the cliff, my helplessness would turn me into its dinner tonight.’
On the eve of Independence Day, Mahesh reads a small news item about a mysterious forest dweller who appeared in the middle of a rainforest out of nowhere and disappeared without a clue. Immediately, he recognizes the man to be Freddie Robert, their friend, guide, leader and the one they had all named Yudhisthira, who had disappeared into the forest several months ago, in search of a rare new bird. Mahesh and his four friends, each named after a Pandava brother, and Panchali, or Meera, decide that the only way they can ascertain whether the man was indeed Freddie is to return to the forest and search for him.
Thus begins Dattapaharam, a powerhouse of a novel by the critically acclaimed and bestselling Malayalam author V.J. James. A rumination on solitude, man’s connection with nature and the strings that attach us to this world, this is a surreal novel where the author’s imagination soars like an eagle and words flow like the untouched springs in a rainforest. At times a fable on the modern world, at times a search for identity amid a quest of discovery, and on the whole a moving tale that takes the reader deep into the forests to understand what really makes us human, Dattapaharam is a powerful novel for our anthropocentric age, written by one of the most exciting voices to emerge from the Indian subcontinent.
Victory City
The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries – from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie.
In the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for the Goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga – literally ‘victory city’ -the wonder of the world.
Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, from its literal sowing out of a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human of ways: the hubris of those in power. Whispering Bisnaga and its citizens into existence, Pampa Kampana attempts to make good on the task that the Goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry – with Pampa Kampana at its centre.
Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, this is a saga of love, adventure and myth that is in itself a testament to the power of storytelling.
The Laughter
Dr. Oliver Harding is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani law professor.
Ruhaba unexpectedly ignites Oliver’s long-dormant passions, a secret desire that quickly tips towards obsession after her teenaged nephew arrives to stay with her. Drawn to them, Oliver tries to reconcile his discomfort with the worlds from which they come, and to quiet his sense of dismay at the encroaching change they represent-both metaphorically and in Ruhaba’s spirited engagement with the student movements on campus.
After protests break out demanding diversity across the university, Oliver finds himself and his beliefs under fire, even as his past reveals a picture more complicated than it seems. As Ruhaba seems to fade in and out of reach, Oliver reacts in ways shocking and devastating.
Sonora Jha has created a complex character both in tune and out of step with our time, an erudite man who first inspires and then challenges our sympathies. As the novel reaches its shocking conclusion, Jha compels us to re-examine scenes in a new light, revealing a depth of loneliness in unlikely places, the subjectivity of innocence, and the looming peril of white rage in America.
An explosive and tense work of fiction, The Laughter is a fascinating portrait of privilege, radicalization, class, and modern academia that forces us to confront the assumptions we make, as both readers and as citizens.