Vaibhav Vats was ten years old when the 1996 cricket World Cup was held in South Asia. Celebrations erupted after India beat Pakistan and he saw the local confectioner give away his sweets for free. But the euphoria soon turned to gloom as the Indian team subsequently crashed out in the semi-final. It remained one of the defining memories of his childhood.Fifteen years later, in 2011, when the World Cup returns to the subcontinent, Vaibhav decides to travel across Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, following the Cup. It is a journey both personal and exploratory, to understand what the game means in his own life and what it means to more than a billion people. Through six breathless weeks, he shadows the tournament from its exhilarating opening in Dhaka to the last ball at the Wankhede Stadium. In between, he spends time with oddballs and followers of all hues, such as a Sinhalese coach in Tamil-dominated Trincomalee and cricket aficionados at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. And finally, he witnesses the Indian team, as if propelled by destiny, claim the greatest victory of all.Anecdotal and incisive, Triumph in Bombay is an extraordinary travelogue that announces the arrival of a brilliant new talent.
Catagory: Non Fiction
non fiction main category
The Essential Sindhi Cookbook
The Sindhi community traces its roots to the Harappan civilization and claims a continuity of tradition and lifestyle that is unique in the Indian subcontinent. As the introduction to this book explains, cuisine is an important aspect of this continuity. While Sindhi food has absorbed elements from various other cuisines, especially Mughlai and Punjabi, it has always retained its own special blend of flavours and fragrances. The famous Sindhi curry, as appealing to the eye as to the palate with its mix of vegetables and curd, the delicately flavoured fish baked in sand, the lotus stems cooked to succulent perfection in earthen pots “the array of dishes is unusual in its variety and range. But this book isn’t just about recipes; it’s also about the traditions and ceremonies that involve food. What, for instance, is the story behind the Sindhi New Year? What are the dishes customarily prepared to mark the day? What would one eat to break a fast? In what order should you serve the various dishes that form part of a wedding feast? The answers to these and other questions relating to the preparation and serving of Sindhi food are all here in this comprehensive guide to a distinctive culture.
Rethinc
Corporations are crucial to society’s well-being. Yet, not many have chosen to adapt themselves to the expectations of employees and society at large in the times we live. In Rethinc, Ram Mohan identifies the three main problems that ail companies, and proposes ways in which these can be combated. Most companies are still run from the top and make next to no attempts to involve employees at the lower levels in decision-making. Executive compensation has spiralled steeply in recent years because the process of determining it is seriously flawed. Boards of directors are ineffective and have abetted the cult of the charismatic CEO who is expected to work wonders.
Rethinc contends that the solution lies in the near-total dismantling of hierarchy or the creation of a ‘bossless’ organization. In such an organization, the structure is flat, employees operate through self-driven teams, there is peer review, freedom to express oneself, power rests on one’s contribution and not one’s title, and the organizational purpose goes beyond the making of profit. There are limits on variable pay linked to performance and pay is more egalitarian. Board effectiveness is ensured through a very different process of selection of independent directors. The office of the CEO is demystfied, and it is the system that is the star, not the individual. Once all this is done, we will have an successful organization that is also a humane organization-an organization in which the employees are raring to get to work every day.
Mahatma Gandhi
With a new introduction by Makarand R. Paranjape
The life of Mahatma Gandhi is the story of a legend. In Mahatma Gandhi: The Great Indian Way, Raja Rao upends the genre of the literary biography with inventive non-linear chronology, through dialogue and anecdote, situating the physical within the metaphysical, and with a text that is both retrospective and contemporary at the same time. By mapping genealogies and distilling them, Rao focuses on Gandhi’s years in South Africa, the birth of non-violent resistance, and then moves into the epic freedom struggle in India, which brought Gandhi to worldwide renown in his own lifetime.
With an emphasis on the idea of dharma as a framework for Gandhism, both in South Africa and India, this is the story of the man as much as the Mahatma.
And…Perhaps Love
A new normal has replaced the established order. Distant relationships, virtual work, blurred futures and measuring our way back to this reality occupy us every day. Negotiating these changes, Sanil Sachar’s And . . . Perhaps Love will work as your companion. It is a silent observer for when you want to read it, and a patient listener when you wish to communicate with it. Capturing the ideas of love, darkness and the attempt to find balance in life, this is a book for now and forever.
Funding Your Startup
Are you finding it tough to fund your start-up? Especially in the post-COVID-19 world, where money is scarce? Well, then, this book is for you.
It takes you through stories of early-stage start-ups and how they successfully managed to raise funding. Even better, it takes you through stories of failures-start-ups that couldn’t raise funding, and why. After all, you can learn as much from failures as you can from successes.
The authors also inter view some of the most accomplished founders in the world of business, such as Deep Kalra of
MakeMyTrip, Yashish Dahiya of PolicyBazaar, Dinesh Agarwal of IndiaMART and Sairee Chahal of SHEROES. Their stories
all come together in a useful ‘PERSISTENT’ framework, which helps make a start-up investment-ready.
Cricket Drona
Cricket Drona takes us through the life of cricketing genius Vasoo Paranjape, who left a defining impact on the game, shaping the careers of some of Indian cricket’s greatest figures, from Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar, from Rahul Dravid to Rohit Sharma. This book is a first-hand chronicle of stories, life lessons and game-changing experiences, written in the words of those who were lucky enough to have crossed paths with Paranjape at just the right time in their careers. For generations of cricketers across India, and even for some in other parts of the world, Paranjape has been an inspiration, a mentor, friend and guide. Peel back the layers and get to the core of a life that nurtured and nourished generations of India’s best cricketing talent.
Azadi – Updated Edition
The chant of ‘Azadi!’ – Urdu for ‘Freedom’-is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what the Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu nationalism.
Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for freedom-a chasm or a bridge?-the streets fell silent. Not only in India but all over the world. Covid-19 brought with it another, more terrible, understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.
In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.
The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, Roy says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.
Rebels with a Cause
Democratic societies take pride in the freedom of expression. Indeed, the right to dissent and tolerance of diverse viewpoints distinguish a democratic society from a dictatorship. In his new book, Prof. T.T. Ram Mohan profiles well-known dissenters Arundhati Roy, Oliver Stone, Kancha Ilaiah, David Irving, Yanis Varoufakis, U.G. Krishnamurti and John Pilger to illustrate how, in practice, dissent tends to be severely circumscribed. It is only the celebrity status of these dissenters that has kept them from being actively harmed. Through an exploration of the lives and ideas of these personalities, the author argues that, while one may not agree with their positions on various issues, their views merit discussion and debate. Engaging with them and responding to their analyses holds out the prospect for substantive reform within the system. Yet, the dominant elites prefer not to do so, instead marginalizing and even ostracizing dissenters precisely because they find change of any sort threatening.
Rebels with a Cause is a book that asks hard questions to challenge the way we view, and live in, the world-an important book for anyone who refuses to accept the status quo.
Parsi Food And Customs
A treasure-house of recipes and customs that define the Parsi way of life Celebrations, rituals and food inevitably go together. And so it is with the Parsis. From Navroz, the dawn of the Parsi New Year, to Navjote, the initiation ceremony of a young child, lagan or marriage, jashans and ghambhars, there is a variety of food to suit every occasion. In this unique book, Bhicoo J. Manekshaw takes the reader on a journey far beyond the traditional stereotypical dhan sakh recipe. For those who love fish, there is a choice of patrani machchi (fish in banana leaves), masala ni machchi or the famed tarapori patio made with sookha boomla (Bombay duck), amongst many others. The Parsi weakness for eggs, on the other hand, has created a range of mouth-watering dishes from the kera per eeda (eggs cooked on bananas) to the humble scrambled egg. There are also teatime snacks, sweets, and desserts and a chapter on kitchen medicine straight from grandmother’s recipe book. Interlaced with the recipes is the author’s piquant description of the customs, rituals and ceremonies that form the Parsi way of life.