Catagory: Non Fiction

Mapping the uncharted territory at the edges of psychological knowledge, these fascinating essays explore compelling aspects of dreams and dreaming. They discuss topics as diverse as memorable dreams, lucid dreaming, the role of dreams in the evolution of human consciousness and the relationship between dreams and the waking state.
In ‘The Dream and Its Embedding’, psychoanalyst Patrick Mahony demonstrates, with absorbing case studies, how dreams can become effective therapeutic tools, while dream scholar Kelly Bulkely concludes in ‘Big Dreams’ that, ultimately, the function of dreams is to make the brain grow. Luigi Zoja, dream analyst, explores the profusion of nightmares among soldiers, prisoners and other victims of war in ‘Nightmares’. And Madhu Tandan, who lived for seven years at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, explains how dreams can access a level of consciousness beyond the psychological.
This volume is the first in the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series, which, under the leadership of Sudhir Kakar, seeks to bring together psychoanalysts, philosophers, religious studies scholars and neuroscientists in order to expand the frontiers of current psychological understanding. Subsequent volumes will spring from symposia held at Wasan Island, Canada, on the supernatural, death and dying and creativity and imagination.
Edited and introduced by Sudhir Kakar, On Dreams and Dreaming will be of interest to scholars and to all who dream and seek to understand why.

A highway robber murders a pregnant young woman for her jewellery. He is caught and sentenced to death by impalement in Gopallapuram. A community of Telugu speakers migrates to the Tamil country to escape Muslim rule. They transform a barren land, turning it into a fertile, verdant village. A horde of bandits attempts to raid a village but is foiled by the unarmed, inventive villagers. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Awars, Ki. Rajanarayanan weaves legend, myth, history and good old-fashioned storytelling in this wonderful contemporary classic.

Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, M.S. Subbulakshmi and Jyoti Basu were defined by the epoch they lived in and they, in turn, defined it. Their legacies are part of our lore, not yet of our understanding. Of a Certain Age celebrates twenty such individuals with charming biographical sketches. Gopalkrishna Gandhi illuminates key moments in their lives with personal knowledge, conversations and correspondence. He offers us little-known facts, vivid portrayals of their vulnerabilities and strengths and touches upon the qualities that made them the stuff of legend. In sketches that are sympathetic and frank, intimate and objective, Gopalkrishna Gandhi analyses the public and political trajectories of these figures and explores the events that connect them to the broader horizon of history. Written in elegant and fluid prose, Of a Certain Age provides valuable insights to understanding these remarkable men and women who shaped events in the twentieth century and had a considerable impact on the subcontinent we know today