Ganesan returns, after four decades, to the town of his childhood, filled with memories of love and loneliness, of youthful beauty and the ravages of age and misfortune, of the promise of talent and its slow destruction. Seeking treatment for leprosy, he must also come to terms with his past: his exploitation at the hands of older men, his growing consciousness of desire and his own sexual identity, his steady disavowal of Brahminical morality and his slowly degenerating body. He longs for liberation-sexual, social and spiritual-but finally finds peace only in self-acceptance.
This translation of the groundbreaking Tamil novel Pasitha Manidam, first published in 1978, offers deep insight into the conservative and caste-conscious temple town of Kumbakonam, viewed here with dispassionately cold clarity as a society that utterly fails its own. Sudha G. Tilak deftly builds upon Karichan Kunju’s prose to expose this world, raw, real, without frills or artifice. The themes of masculinity, desire and sexuality, caged within caste and repression, all combine to give readers front-row seats to the many acts we put on for and as a community.
Jeet Thayil has compiled the definitive anthology of Indian poetry in English. This monumental undertaking, two decades in the making, brings together writers from across the world, a wealth of voices–in dialogue, in soliloquy, in rhetoric, and in play–to present an expansive, encompassing idea of what makes an ‘Indian’ poet. Included are lost, uncollected, or out of print poems by major poets, essays that place entire bodies of work into their precise cultural contexts, and a collection of classic black and white portraits by Madhu Kapparath. These images, taken over a period of thirty years, form an archive of breathtaking historical scope. They offer the viewer unparalleled intimacy and access to the lives of some of India’s greatest poets.
The story of four billion years of life on Earth
Looking forward to a book that explains life? Well, here it is! Explaining Life Through Evolution opens a window to the four billion year history of the millions of species we see on this planet. This book does not simply narrate the story of evolution: It brings to light who we are and where we came from. As humans we often focus on identifying our differences, no matter how small; Prosanta Chakrabarty demystifies our perceived differences and emphasizes our similarities. As more and more people take ancestry tests, sending their DNA samples and money to genealogy testing centres, we need to be educated on what the results actually mean scientifically; and we all have to decide together what it means socially. He thinks we should be celebrating the fact that our diversity comes from the same little drops of water and sunlight, each of us just shining a little differently as seen through the prism of evolution.
Prosanta encourages us to think of life as being like a book, one that is always in the making. What we see living around us today are just the last few pages. If we look out on to the millions of species that we share this planet with we can trace their histories, and ours, back through nearly four billion years of evolution. We can also think of all the living things around as the young leaves on an ancient and gigantic ‘Tree of Life’, all of us connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors.
Evocative, comprehensive and thought-provoking, this is a book which will compel you to reimagine life.
Lily Tharoor was born in a small village in Kerala in the mid-1930s. From this humble beginning, she would live around the world, raise three global citizens, and inspire multiple generations with her drive to learn and achieve. Fiercely independent and ambitious, she pushed her children, including her son Shashi, to always think outside the box. The only ground firm enough to stand on, she told them, is the one written into existence by your own hand.
In Good Innings, Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan tells her mother Lily’s ‘extraordinary, ordinary’ story through a combination of personal reflections, life lessons, and philosophical insights. The result is a collection of teachable vignettes aimed to galvanize a new generation into growth and action. Every chapter starts with an anecdote which will encourage conversations and transformations in the reader’s life. Good Innings is an intimate account of the life of a beloved matriarch with a modest background and an iron will-a woman who learned from the school of life and now has lessons to share of her own.
Penned by the 16th century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations enumerates how to live wisely and meaningfully in an unpredictable world. Brimming with timeless wisdom, this book has found its way into the the bookshelves of many notable statesmen, thinkers, and intellectuals.
WHEN LIFE BRINGS YOU PAIN AND SUFFERING, WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? TURN INWARDS.
Through Meditations, Aurelius urges the reader to embrace the principles of stoic philosophy-the key to living a happy and fulfilling life.
Learn how to:
1. Cultivate inner strength, resilience, and peace
2. Overcome self-doubt and fear
3. Develop self-discipline
… and much more.
Cerebral, contemplative, and profound, Meditations is among the greatest works of popular philosophy, and is truly life-changing.
Humankind’s unrelenting mistreatment of our planet has finally led to a seemingly futile awareness of our acute shortage of time. What separates us from an oblivion preceded by excruciating pain and strife? The characters of this unique book, inspired by legends from lore and literature alike, pursue paths they believe are best for them and for their world. They are unaware of the flaws that distort their dreams. Divided into three parts, Suniti Namjoshi’s Dangerous Pursuits turns righteousness and virtue upon their heads, making for an irreverent and ruminative exploration of the beginning of the end of the world.
In “Bad People”, Ravana, Shupi and Kumbh deflect the world from its destructive course, but perfection remains a distant dream. Ravana, of course, belongs to epic; but how does he fit into the twenty-first century? With the help of Grandma Ketumati’s balm, these three ‘bad’ people outwit our contemporary villains. In “Heart’s Desire”, an old woman seeks to make a bargain with the devil, but the devil isn’t interested, and she finds herself stuck with two angels instead. She and the angels do their best, but the old woman learns that the heart’s desires aren’t all that she had expected. And in “The Dream Book”, based on The Tempest, Caliban, Miranda, Prospero and the rest find that their dreams clash and are as pretty and pitiless as glass shards. Yet, each time their dreams crack, they dream again, reckless in this dangerous pursuit.
It is said that road to India’s power corridor runs through Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of the country which sends eighty MPs to the lower house of the Parliament. Till date, most of the Prime Ministers of India belonged to this state and an electoral win in the state assembly paves the way for the formation of a central government.
The question is, do we have a barometer to guess the political pulse of the people? What are the political trends in the state? Which are the political, social, and economic factors that affect those trends?
Would extreme backward castes (EBCs) be successful in getting direct share in the power structure, which has been a dream so far for them?
This book written by veteran journalist Pradeep Srivastava tries to find out answers to these questions with in-depth analysis and in an easy to understand language.
The Worlds Within You tells the story of Ami Shekar, who has decided to take a break from her first year of university in the UK and return to her home in Chennai. Ami is stuck, and finds herself fretting, overthinking and retreating into her own head. But she knows that whatever it is that makes her feel ‘weird’ all the time must have a name to it. And so, Ami is back home, to come to terms with many things: her mental health, her own identity, memories of her grandfather and, finally, herself.
Set over the course of seven writing classes, this is an unconventional and melancholic take on what it means to be alive and finding your own emotional support system-no matter how flawed the people within your system might be.
In the summer of 1942, thirteen-year-old Anne Frank found herself hiding with her family in the cramped attic of an old office building in Amsterdam. Outside, Jews all over Europe were being thrown into concentration camps.
Exiled from the outside world, the Frankfurt family battled hunger, boredom, confinement, and the ever-looming threat of discovery and death. As the second World War continued to rage, Anne turned to her diary and documented everything. The diary was accidentally discovered in the attic shortly after the family was arrested. In 1947, it was formally published in Dutch.
Since then, Anne Frank’s phenomenal diary has become a world classic, offering a terrifying glimpse of what it was like being a Jew in a war-ridden Europe. Honest, vulnerable, and tragic, Anne Frank’s story serves as a powerful reminder of the horrors of war, and as an eloquent testament to the indestructible nature of human spirit.
India has a paradox of malnourishment as well as morbid obesity. While children have fewer weight-related health and medical problems than adults, overweight children are at high risk of becoming overweight adolescents and adults, placing them at risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes later in life. They are also more prone to develop stress, sadness, and low self-esteem.
The contributing factors could be many, besides genetic makeup and medical factors like hypothyroidism and Cushing’s Syndrome. Children today spend far more time on screens than playing games outdoors, more so in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Energy-dense foods and drinks are more readily available now than before. Psychological factors like stress also lead to overeating and increase the risk for obesity in childhood.
The book is a comprehensive roadmap for prevention and management of childhood obesity by one of India’s top bariatric surgeons. With real life case studies and examples, the book helps parents and children chart a roadmap to recovery and a fitter, healthier life. Without corrective action, there could be serious implications for future generations.
